Hope. 3

Hope.

To a gardener, there is nothing more hopeful than the unexpected seedling that might be a bearing plant. This one, finding its way through what appears to be iron rebar extends to the sky in hopes of sunlight and water.  It has no business being where it is, and yet, there it is. Proud, tall.

Rebar is textured iron rods used as structural supports in concrete. I use them in my pea-gravel garden with raised beds to hold up PVD hoops for winter cover. They hold things up. I hope to extend my growing season by covering the beds with clear plastic. They help create a sort of greenhouse that helps keep heat in on those days and nights that would make it hard to grow lettuce.

When it rains, or trucks go by, or in a lot of other circumstances, a little dirt collects between the rebar. And that soil can hold seeds just hoping to sprout.

They hope, in the dark, that they will feel the lengthening days warm them until they sprout--hoping for more and more growth.

Perhaps the rust on the rebar helps feed them. They hope their way to growth, nature complies, and if they are lucky, they are transplanted to a place that will not kill them, as the heat around the rebar surely will at some point.  It will get too hot and the plant will wither. It will become more soil for the next seeds that fall there.

Hope is ephemeral--it's a longing for things not yet manifested. And it is practical: setting the vision and pursuing it, taking action, managing thoughts, choice on choice creating the future. We must have hope, even if it feels a bit manufactured, like the textured rebar. The seed only seeks opportunity.