I need to go and sit beside a sweet pea seedling.
To touch its tendrils reaching for something to grab hold of, the ballast for the way ahead, the ladder to heaven. The biggest seedling has done it – reached for and wrapped itself around a chive stalk, curled its thin tendril in a custom knot around the chive. An anchor. A foothold. A touchpoint for security.
It’s working on its fifth set of leaves, all opposite pairs, two smooth-tipped ovals facing each other on a tiny branch, like palms open to the sun. One tendril growing out past them. Reaching.
Is it wrong for it to grow so? To desire the sun and the heights it can see above? Is it wrong to want to stretch beyond the soil, beyond the planter even, and out into the big, wild world?
The urge for growth is inherent in its nature. The moment the seed came to life beneath the soil—do not fear the darkness, little one!— its desire manifested in expansion. Roots spreading down, stem straining up, each stretching to source material.
The new plant must keep sprouting leaves, leaves that will catch the sun’s energy in a green web and turn it into sugar, food for more leaves, more growth, more height, till finally the plant will bear the weight of the glory it is unfurling toward – the flower.
Don’t stop now, sweet pea seedling. You know the way. Find it. Fight gravity. Grapple and grasp. Reach for those footholds. Make yourself lovely and large.
I’m waiting for the flower. The rush and flash of colour, the heady breath of nectar, the laugh-out-loud splendour of a humble sweet pea blossom that will catch a bee and empty its hidden cup till it is brushed with the holy yellow dust of another, and swell with fruit, and begin again the work of the sacred seed.
Whisper your joy to me, little green one. I am listening. Show me the way, your simple, sweet apocalypse.
I am reaching, too.
*
~ Lindsey Gallant
