Buds of Fire

And in the shadow of our human dream of falling,
human voices are Creation’s most recent flowers,
mere buds of fire
nodding on their stalks.
— Li-Young Lee, Dying Stupid

Working through the gardening shed, I found a terra cotta pot sporting hints of old root filaments, betraying its previous occupant from last season. Each life takes their place in line, lives their season and moves on for the next to take their turn. The keen observer sees hints of past lives all around us, ghosts whispering that they once turned their gaze to the sun too. Gardeners know a thing or two about the tenuous hold we have on our time. So do writers and poets.

May mocks the meticulous gardener. Put your best foot forward and the trees crap all over it, again and again, until you admit you aren’t in control of anything. Life offers lessons for the attentive student. Seasons come and go. So too do we. We are only here for a brief dance with our best intentions.

Life is change—this we know. Some of those whispering ghosts are us, telling tales of past seasons gone forever, of who we used to be. Sometimes there’s just wisp of filament that betrays our past life, sometimes it’s the whole pot. Still, there’s work to be done in the now. While there’s time in this season, fill an empty pot with something new.