Witness

I’m still waiting, two weeks post-planting, for my sweet peas and gladiolus to emerge.  I feel anxious and apprehensive every day as I enter the garden.  Is today the day?  Why haven’t they sprouted yet?  Am I watering enough?  Too little?  How are those seeds and bulbs doing down there, hidden under that dirt?    I gently remind myself that they know far more than I do about what’s happening in this small plot of ours.  I will try not to burden them or myself with too much expectation.

As of this afternoon, they still haven’t sprung through the soil.  But I did gather an early harvest from my garden today:  two slender stalks of asparagus which I’d planted last spring.  I’ve added them to the store-bought bunch I’m steaming for dinner tonight.  I’m certain that I’ll recognize my own, just as a mother can pick her child from the crowd.  I was a bit sad to cut them, afraid that perhaps these two spears would comprise the year’s yield.  Yet, as I knelt with my pruning shears in hand, I saw that more spiky tips had just barely broken through the soil.

As much as I’d like to claim their emergence as having something to do with me, I won’t.  I’d rather just revel in the mystery of it all:  how these plants just know; how they each do their thing silently, but brightly; and how grateful I am to witness, quietly, this spring.