Wintering Over

DM's collards, fertility, and sage, wintered over. Portland 2010.

Empty pots, untamed soil, and Gowanus, so much more Gowanus this year than last, before I knew much about the superfund site under my flower beds. Gardening, for me, is the annual question of whether it's better to test the soil or to plant the plants and live your life. My hope is that I will ask myself that question each year, and that each year I will think of Eugene, the laws, the cat's skeleton, the tomatoes, the funeral lilies, the blueberries, the hope.

This year I think it's better to test the soil but I'm not going to. Nope, going to plant my bulbs in ignorance, fertilize them with stubbornness, and make the prove to me, as they do each year, that LIFE resists even my bitterest late-winter bitterness.

Here's a Nina Simone song.