Begin

This time of year that room is not much visited.Its herringbone-patterned floor of worn brickstilts here and there where rodents have made inroads.
Homemade flats lie heaped in corners; stacks of cellslean sleepily together; insulation dangles;tools hang, festooned with webs and dust. Sometimes
when the door has been set ajar, a towhee wanders in,becomes confused at light from so many windows,beats itself silly, then rests, is eventually found
and shown the way out. There's not muchan old lady can do but wait, watching forearlier suns to rise, for petrichor,*
for that sudden dislocation brought onby stepping into sunshine by a southern wall.Then, after one jonquil blooms by way of
affirmation, she'll step in, rearrange things,dust her work bench and stool, bring seeds,open the soil bin, grab a pot, begin.


__________________________________*The odor of dry earth moistened by rain.