1. thescian
  2. The world beneath our feet

The world beneath our feet

By thescian on June 8, 2010.

Over the weekend dug and tilled a patch of land in the garden to plant some herbs. It took an hour and the effort was rewarded with a rich harvest of pebbles, worms and roots of various sizes that ran underground like highways carrying nutrients to far away places (one can imagine trees as cities here, the analogy seems to fit quite well). Just beneath one's feet lurks a world that we are oblivious to most of the time. Sometimes, to feel human, we must plant our feet an inch into the ground and let our head and shoulders soak in the air and sun.

I planted sage, peppermint (top) and basil, thyme (bottom).

i-8be476a9fdcc3022f2984c8d7b59fb9e-herbs.jpg

A few earthworms are exposed and wriggle on the solid clumps unable to get back into their dark damp world. I bury them so they can live. Daughter wants to hold an earthworm in hand. I place one on her palm, she admires it and drops it in a hurry when it starts moving. I am reminded of a poem by Seamus Heaney called Digging.

Tags
Creative commons
DesiPundit

More like this

Succession, Human and Wild
This week's project is getting the material up for my garden plants and herb CSA - I'm hoping to be able to offer a wide variety of plants from annual vegetables (my tomato list alone is insane) to unusual edibles, native plants, flowers and herbs. My garden obsession is making me a little nuts…
Poem: Digging by Seamus Heaney
From his collection Death of a Naturalist. A wonderful collection of short poems. This particular poem's theme and language resonates across cultures and continents. It triggered memories of my time with my grandfather on the land picking cotton and onion, cutting grass and sugarcane, wading…
Dawn of the Leafy Age
Recently I've been trying to imagine a world without leaves. It's not easy to do at this time of year, when the trees around my house turn my windows into green walls. But a paper published on-line today at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science inspires some effort. A team of English…
Getting Intimate With My Weeds
I plant weeds sometimes. I just feel I should admit this upfront, and come out with it and accept your outrage. You see, my property isn't exactly untouched - it was a sod farm at one point (although most of the actual sod harvesting was done across the road on a field that is not mine), which…