santos scribes

that’s what she was.

not ‘again’ like a christian, god no, but rather like a seed that’s been planted, grown to a seedling and then one day ripped from its root, taken to soil not matching its own, tasked to create life and viability from someone else’s dirt.

the first time it happened was on a sunday, in the afternoon heat of a hot august sun. months had passed since the seed had been sown and, on that day, a godly green stalk broke earth and sprouted from iron rich soils, that lacked everything else. there was spirit and love in that garden, but it choked on unruly tendrils and wiry weeds, left untended too. no one saw the seed get planted, the magic and the love that surrounded and imbibed it. few remember the day it broke through; its want, its willingness to be alive. they came from all over to watch though, to offer judgement and opinions about the garden, its particular shade of green, it’s fitness to survive. and so, all they ever saw was the stretch and the stunt, between the growth; stunt, stretch, ( g r o w ) stunt, stretch,
( g r o w ), green, yellow.. others couldn’t bear to watch.

six solar orbits passed before it was decided they’d seen enough, grown tired of watching the sultry garden flourish and fail. a small group gathered then with a plan: they were going to save the seedling, take it far away, to better soil, where it would thrive and green and really grow this time. so, one ordinary monday in the middle of april, it happened again. they all watched as the weakest one with the strongest hand reached first, tugging the seed, now a seedling, by both stem and leaves. the seedling held tight to itself, to its roots for a while. but in the end, it had no choice, it had to let go of itself, yanked, then pulled from its very own root. it left faint traces of itself behind in the soil it had known well and took nothing of value with it either. the seedling was placed in a dark plastic bag, its tender roots exposed, untethered, driven three towns and two lifetimes away to another fenced in dirt patch in the ground. in time the seedling came to realize that every garden lacks something and in this one it was the nutrient absorption necessary for integration and assimilation, the proper trellising with which to grow and bare fruit from. days would pass when there wasn’t any sun in the new garden, other days no food. and so, the seedling grew in time with a crookedness and a want that never did green the way they’d said it would.

and she never did quit wondering what might have been had she been left to grow in her original garden, in her original way, had she been born just once and allowed to stay that way.