As the snow peels back and a rich and sleeping earth thaws to reveal itself, leaves and branches in various stages of decomposition stare me in the face. Last summer's oregano and hydrangeas reach stringy brown arms in a spray of limbs around our dormant garden. This past weekend I hacked out the long legs of last year's raspberry brambles, pruned back all manners of flower stems, turned the soil in our vegetable beds, and made a mental list of all that needs to be done in order for our summer garden to bloom.
While I snipped and raked, the growth of seasons past sifting through my fingers, I had a sense of wonder at all the surrounding decay. The sky was gray and mysterious, thunder rumbling in the distance, and I was there with the past. The echoes of last year and the year before whispering their stories in my ear.
I am forever wondering at these vestiges of the past, how they color the present and allude to infinite possibilities. It is these reverberations that guide and provoke. As things are destroyed, beloved clothing moth eaten or worn to a thread, last years flowers, pedals long gone, a beautiful skeleton, an opportunity comes to imagine something new.
Amidst all that is broken down, chives and tulips creep up from beneath the bed of leaves, buds begin to burst open, the grass is looking greener and in the quiet between the bird song and raindrops there is the hum of new life- fed on a healthy diet of yesterday.