Plants

I wasn't intrigued by the subject
It didn't prompt me to be creative
I was eager to be a part of another semester
of creative writing
The more I've thought about it
I was thinking back on any
experiences in my life that would justify to myself
writing something creative
concerning a theme of plants
I wasn't eager to writeI wasn't eager to write about plants
It didn't have a direct connectionwith me
Or do plants have a connection
more directly than I was willing
to think about
Thinking more, and more,
a lot of memories from
childhood
Difficult to sift through
Perhaps I have some issues with
plants
My mother and father loved plants
plants in their lawn and landscape
plants in our home
they opened a plant shop I remember
next to a home they purchased, refurbished
and sold to a young family from Vietnam
they were also hearbroken when
all the plants they loved that
thrived in the humid Texas climate
died from the cold when being moved
to Iowa
the plant store they had opened with
another couple was closed when their"partnership" was becoming unpleasant

One of my weekly jobs was mowing and raking
our home and church lawns
A combination of it being
a way to occupy the free time of a growing boy
and being the son of a parent who
was raised on a farm and became a caregiver to others on or near farmlands

As I became an adult,
I've not been an avid plant fan
Too much work
Too much nurturing
Too much care and need for space and positioning in proper sunlight
I was too busy with my life, my wants
My living spaces were limited
However, I seem to always carry a respect for
the needs of plants in a busy world
I've been fascinated on how this
large city has been conscious of creating
wonderful parks with trees and green grass
I also would always be sure to throw a cigarette butt
away from at least the roots of trees or young plants
I always feel intrusive when walking on a busy sidewalk
not to step too swiftly by a brush reaching over and
across somebody's fence in the neighborhood

I remember getting in a lot of trouble when young
for accompanying an older kid to go and knock over
and destroy a neighbor's vegetable garden
He said it would be cool
I thought he was cool, or at least was impressionable
to think he and it were both cool
My father made me go sit down with the
neighbor to listen to her cry and say how
disappointed she was to see me be a part of something
that was destructive to her garden
My father then told me that I was to give the money
that he was going to use to buy me a new bicycle to her
Not long after, that heart-broken lady soon became
my piano-teacher
What a series of remarkable and difficult lessons to be taught
A lesson on how not to treat people
A lesson on how not to treat things that people spend alot of time and care growing and nurturing
A lesson on forgiveness
A lesson on nurturing a young failure and nurturing some respect into the youthful child that wasn't
seeing the results of the others' caring around him
This was a difficult theme to write through

What an analogy that plants represent
about the caring and nurturing the caretakers of the planet Earth practice and need themselves to their task
to be good caretakers of all things living.