Spring comes to the sidewalk
in the longer days of March.
The sun warms the slab, and beneath
it the seeds of old weeds start to stir.
They are tiny. And who knows how,
but in the dark, they begin to grow
and put down roots and,
though it seems unlikely,
begin to push through the concrete itself.
First a hairline crack. This fissure is somehow
sufficient to provide light and water enough.
Soon there are tendrils, then whole leaves,
then the yellow blooms of new weeds.
What is it in us that knows to push?
I, too, have wintered in a dark, thick cast, one
of my own making. Cramped and dormant,
I had stopped believing in hope.
But it was not hope that cracked the shell.
Nor was it anything that I did.
It was life’s longing for itself.
Sometimes it’s merely due to life’s pendulum finally swinging back in your favor.
“What is it in us that knows to push?” you ask. ‘Tis “life’s longing for itself.”
So true, so moving…
The push, exactly. I like all the time spent under the sidewalk, cultivating that vision before the bringing it to the larger nature of ourselves.
Winter is under the sidewalk, dormant, resting, creating potential. All it needs is a crack…and the love that is the sun’s continued passion for the earth