My Flower Pot

I have a flower pot.

It's a big pot, but I think it's too big, at first. I only have one tiny seed. I pile in a mound of dirt at the bottom, but not too much. I only have one tiny seed. I plug up the hole in the bottom so the seed won't wash away.

I water the seed, drop by drop, aiming each drop right at the seed because it must get right to this one seed. Soon there is mud at the bottom.

I huddle over my seed, over the top of my giant flower pot, day and night. Willing it to grow. intending it to grow. I'm doing everything right, giving it everything it needs.

Finally, miraculously, it sprouts, but once sprouted it ceases to grow. It begins to turn yellow. Still I water it, but the water gets higher in the pot as the drain is still plugged, and the mud grows a crust of yellow fungus. I huddle closer over my pot. I pray over the sprout "please, God, make this sprout grow! Make it flourish! Aren't I doing my part? Aren't I an attentive gardener? I water my one, tiny seed every day - many times, but the water has grown mold! I have plugged up the hole so the seed can't wash away! I've stayed close over the seed, watching it, day and night! Why oh why won't it grow? Why does it whither?"

When I hear no reply, I rack my brain for anything else I can possibly do to make it grow. In my desperation I reach down and tug at the tiny, awkward shoot. Grow. This way. Grow!

The tiny shoot pulls out of its mound of brackish water and mud. A few root hairs reach feebly down from its withered stalk. I am defeated.

As I stand from my stooped position over the pot, the pain of my aching back unwinds itself. The sun is shining, warm on my face. The wind delivers blankets of dandelion fluff over the landscape as children release the seeds with puffed cheeks. Make a wish!

I bend over once again, tip over my pot, and remove the stopper from its bottom. A warm summer rain begins to fall as I right the pot, and all the mud and slime are freed from its bottom through the spout. I fill my lungs with fragrant, moist air. The rain continues to gently fall, the children squeal as the drops spatter flushed faces, the flower seeds still gusting and swerving between the droplets. With a gust of wind the trees, too, drop their seeds where birds can find them easily, but not all...

The yard around me has grown high with weeds and vines as I have focused all my attention on my vanquished seed, and determined to find something to show for myself I begin to prune and rake. My pot is so large it makes an excellent container for all the debris. The rain stops and dandelion fluff dances by once again. Content that I have at least done the chores I have begrudged since my seedling project was begun, I sigh and return inside, somewhat less disappointed than when I destroyed my seed.

As I mount the steps toward home I see my sprout resting finally on the sidewalk, then wash into a gutter, and on to an unknown destination.

For weeks I forget about my pot. I continue to enjoy my well-tended garden. New containers for clippings have been filled and emptied. Occasionally I grow wistful about my seedling, but recognizing my folly, I shake my head and smile.

One morning I am in the garden and notice my pot. The forgotten clippings and leaves left alone have mulched into a rich loam. The pot itself has been shattered by the roots of a magnificent tree growing from its former center - an oak, an ash, a yew, an elm, a forrest unto itself. A fruit-bearing tree, to be sure, as it is in full blossom. A tree which has never been seen on this earth in all her days. Its delicate branches sweep the earth and the bright dandelions she wears as a skirt, and she scoops me up and lifts me toward the sky, toward the light let in.