All the Birds of This Day

I chose ranunculas because I liked the colors and roundness of their little bobbing heads. I also took the plastic package from the shelf of the nursery because on the cardboard backing the instructions said, plant close together. I love growing things. Not so much that I love me growing them, because I feel like it's a talent that I don't yet possess, but I mean that I love the things that grow. I love that I'm around when it happens, that in some way my spectatorship to the whole event of spring gives reason for the flowers to bloom and the grass to grow. I'm sure they would continue even without me, but I like to think it is in some ways a special hello to the world, and more specifically me. Though I could be anyone.

I orginally had the idea to plant 28 seeds all around the town and give each person in my wilderness writing class an address where they could find their own and special plant growing just for them in a forgotten patch of dirt somewhere south of campus, but when i saw the directions for planting on the back of the ranunculas, I understood that planting our symbolic selves far apart was not the way to go, for we had grown together.

So I rode my bike around looking for a spot. I came to a lovely little park near center street. I surveyed for the perfect tree and then climbed under the bowing branches and swept the wintered pine needles away with my palms. Underneath was fresh moist dark dirt. There was a little sunlight falling on the patch. I took my spoon and the bag of bulbs from my polka dotted bag and began planting. There was something good and real about planting a bulb for each person in my class. I thought of them as my hands dug down and through the earth over and over again. 2 to 4 inches apart.