"We can still prune and stretch and scratch a fresh surface into our encrusted topsoil."

I become root bound by the end of Winter, just as if I had been in the same pot too long. Born bi-pedal, if I hang in one place too long, I become bi-polar, faunching in my cage. The days grow longer, ably assisted by daylight savings' quick hand. I understand that the changes amount to sleight-of-hand. They still catch my eye and convince me that I must have been standing here too long, staring into the middle space just beyond the window glass, seeing almost nothing anymore. I have transformed into a genuine bore.

The Muse must drag me out of my cave. I woke from deep hibernation weeks ago but can't quite quit my bedding. I dread the flight, grateful that a late season blizzard further delayed our departure. We'll fly separately, unable to rebook onto a plane together. I see her off then hang around for three hours before flying to catch up to her after midnight in the land we once called home. We'll creep in during the wee hours, a fitting greeting for these errant children too long gone. Our roots, long cloaked, will seem more prominent then. We might trim a few more with this transplanting to leave some toe space at the bottom of our newer pot.

We were never gone long enough to completely disappear, though our reappearance might well upset some otherwise stable status quos. We mostly stay in our pot, growing invisibly beneath the soil, worrying about little beyond that next visit from the watering can. Our soil grows fetid, flecked with bits of mineral salts, slowly suffocating ourselves to survive. We're usually pleased to hide behind a more vigorous African Violet or more showy orchid's bloom, infrequently budding or blooming for ourselves. The fresh season shows some promise. A larger pot, fresh soil, perhaps an improved aspect relative to the sun. A time will come, we insist, when we'll put down more permanent roots again, maybe someplace where we won't have to come in to hide from cold.

We have become fair weather creatures. We ache for familiar seasons and all the once good reasons to revisit us again. Our life support came to almost strangle us. We mostly focus upon those coming up behind, hardly caring to look ahead. We take their progress as our own. We visit their houses as if they were our home. We revel in unfamiliar spacings. We grow down more than we grow upward now. We grew used to the nursery before we became showy and moved further out into the world to finally inhabit a shelf where we would never be identified as native. We can still prune and stretch and scratch a fresh surface into our encrusted topsoil. That'll do for now.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Reconsidering , #PureSchmaltz