Carrots+(From+Egg)

Carrots (From “Egg”) by merichclark

Spring. The first warm day. I’m crouched down at the edge of my garden bed, cultivator in one hand, pulling what I think to be another stone. Its rounded top, smooth like creek rock, attracts my gaze and, with a single tug, reveals a carrot left over from last season. I chuckle, find another, and soon enough the plastic bucket is full.

It’s unlooked-for.

And partly a matter of Nature’s challenge to the green thumb; the blight, the tiny spores spreading on the winds of a rainy night in April; the slug advancing on the first tender shoots; a greedy squirrel eyeing the tomatoes on the trellis.

Or the subzero winds of January, the downed tree branches, the road salt caked on the underside of my rusting pickup: the challenge of pulling what is edible from the decay of dust, bright orange blazing from dun-colored rows.

But now the rays of light melt the last of the snow, the cardinals hop along the gutters whose dripping punctuates the passing clouds like the ticking of a clock.

The seasons change. The carrots emerge. Nature takes; nature gives.