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Homefull 1.3: Transplanting

transplanting
My life might be reasonably traced through the variety of soils it’s been transplanted into: from loess to hardpan, arid sand then soggy loam, cherty infill to perlite-improved clay. The process inevitably involves violent dislocation because roots set down without expecting to ever let go. The finer tendrils get disregarded, simply snipped off and left to decompose. We also have to prune some of the central tap root, which has usually foraged half way to China. The root ball, ever increasing in size and cumbersomeness, can survive out of soil indefinitely, but it needs special attention to keep from drying out during the transition.

This transition has lasted over-long, this separation particularly difficult. We’ll know tomorrow if the new hole we’ve dug proves adequate to hold the life we’ve accumulated, but we won’t know until the end of the dormant winter period if new tendrils find this latest new soil hospitable. Until Spring, we’ll be attentive to hydration and potentially killing frost. We’ll be huddled and cuddled in.

I used to be able to move myself. That was before I’d filled so many boxes with well-read books and unpublished writing, kitchen utensils and sacred totems, garden supplies and largely unused dress clothes. My tree of this life has become a forest in comparison to the seedling I first transplanted alone, and many hands and some heavy machinery help move me now.

I think I really should be used to transitioning, familiar with the burlap and twine that binds together what’s left of my foundation, though I’m confident that I’ll never grow accustomed to dislocation. Later, I’ll fondly recount the occupation, and proudly feature whatever sprouted, saying that this soil seems so obviously superior to any I’ve been planted into before. I will gratefully forget the surgery and the odd limb accidentally sheared off by the casual labor that helped heel me in. By this time next year, I will have dropped leaves above my freshly exploring network of roots and started the siphon that will nourish me until I outgrow this now seemingly boundless new plot.

©2012 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved












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