Cool, tentative rain. A line of sentinel blackberry canes, dug. Root balls, gnarled and long. Goat neighbors munch tender shoots of reed canary grass. Entwined Western red cedars and ferns in their new homes. Beautiful child dancing through the planting, hiding from the wind, noticing everything.
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal… To hope is to give yourself the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” ―Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
You help make my present not only inhabitable, but also joyful. Thank you.
New elders, teens known and new to each other, all new to me. You trickle in, each of you right on time, growing us from six to twenty at our peak. We disentangle layers of black plastic sheeting from roots, wrestle blackberry canes from a conifer and elderberry, activate the pungent sent of Herb Robert as we pull it from the ground. Goats arrive, stunning slot-pupilled eyes pulling us from shade to sun. Our happiness increases by 50%. In the end, reed canary grass stands tall, thistles sharp, there is a sea of blackberry before us, but there is only discernment, no discouragement. This is the work before us. We gather to connect before falling away to rest so that we may return again, over and over, for as long as it takes.
A song for you.
We rake dead canes, push into the sea of brambles, unearth gnarled root balls dense with energy from 93 million miles away. The goats show up, eat the apples, eat the cedar leaves, eat the reed canary grass, eat the blackberry leaves, too. Three black-tailed deer wander through, slender necks curved curiously toward us, their gaze reverently returned. Two Canada geese noisily converse as they flap by. The piercing cry of a hawk turns heads to the sky.
What a gift to know you on this earth, you who drew twelve orcas last week, you who are fuzzy on your company motto but certain that you all hold the best morals. Where else could I have met you who live in Lake Stevens, you whose home I have lived blocks from all these years? Where else would we find scuffed and faded cartoon figurines and wonder at the story? Where else is there to be but here?
Pictures above by a kind and generous volunteer. Pictures below by Tracy Banaszynski.
A song for you.
***
The lesson I need to learn over and over is that I am not alone. This is the lesson you teach me every time we are together.
I am so grateful for you. And for goats!
