Tales from Bent Twig Trail: The Seed

By Wren Smith

tulip tree pod
Tulip Tree Seed Pod

Summer has progressed into its season of fullness, with seeds forming and  ripening along the Bent Twig Trail and elsewhere. In honor of this annual regeneration, I offer you a poem I  wrote a few months ago.

Seed
By Wren Smith

A seed is dormant most of its life.
Time does not exist inside the walls,
The stone fruit,
the pome,
the berry like flesh
does’t touch the
flame, not yet lit.
Waiting is the game,
but the seed plays
no games.
The seed is, if it is
anything beyond a seed,
all seriousness.

And yet,
the seed is not impervious.
Water will breech
its boundaries,
darkness will feed it.
Sometimes the cold
is needed, like a knife that
opens its latch.
And what’s inside,
unfurls
unfolds,
unhinges
upturns,
pushes past
the hardened;
cracks the crush of earth
or pavement.
The book opens.
One or two green hands
reach for a new chapter.

Want more Tales from Bent Twig? Click here to view the archive.

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