communities below our feet

of the flower, the seed, the roots below

spring is of flowers,

the exultant shape of color and form,

the offer to the insect of sugar

in exchange for help making more of self,

we mammals have evolved with the bounty

of the seeds into which flowers transform,
often held within succulent fruit,

our eyes and our souls love the bounty

of the gratuitous beauty of the flower,

spring is of the seed,

asleep, biding its time,

until the world seems ripe for it

to swell with water 

and awaken the self within,

I celebrate the first shoots

to break from the ground into the air,

I work to savor the roots which grounded the seed

before its coming forth upon the land,

below the surface upon which we scamper,

the ground witnesses transformations and connections

we only glimpse in the shadows

of what comes forth into the air,

the community we work to bring about in our human world

could learn much from the communities below our feet,

that world where all the kingdoms of life

work for themselves and for each other,

a wholeness we need but which slips away from us,

like a ghost we try to hold.

by Henry H. Walker

April 30, ‘20