The Soil and the Dirt

It is Spring. After the equinox. Beyond April, even. There are million pieces of empiric evidence to back me up, here. It is the grand emergence of all things- eyes wide to take in the verdure, pupils narrowing against a strong new sun.

When old the year has run its course, and the next is newly, truly born of the remnant muck- it is always a shock to me. Newsflash: the world can be soft, warm, and full of colors from pigment, rather than light. Old friends show up, friends who seem like they stepped out of a book, or a fairy play: Snow Drop, Forsythia, Quince, and Daffodil. Apple Blossom.

I step out the door and don't believe my nose, I don't believe my skin.

Maybe this is hard for me to believe because this year, spring actually matters in material ways. Traps to be got in the water, plants to be got into the ground. Plans to bring to fruition. And the saying, "work is love made manifest" suddenly applies to my life.

But to everything here, there's the inversion. There's the soil and the dirt. Every season new seeds of delicious suspicion are cast, watered by slavering tongues, and allowed to bloom, damaging weeds in a delicate garden. Rumor, doubt, disdain. Yes, who in a small town doesn't also have a long acquaintance with them? Diverting to cultivate, perhaps, until they ruin the soil.

Dark thoughts for a sunny day, no?

Would there were a ready tool to pluck those weeds. But since there isn't, I will focus on these fleeting friends, who are kind enough to drop by.