Wednesday, 01.27:
Started a new collaboration with Mark yesterday, picking a line from the list he’d sent me in December. He responded quickly and we were off and running again, back and forth. This morning he’d sent more lines and I entered the poem again easily, grateful for the quiet time to do so, and sent off my part, whereupon Mark messaged me that he thought the poem was done and needed only a title. He suggested “Flood.” Good enough for now. I don’t think it’s a flash in the pan that we write well together, and I’m grateful too for that.
Begonia dust: studying the photo I took of the tiny leaves poking up next to a phlox cutting I’m rooting under a grow light, I wondered if these volunteers might be begonias? If so, what kind? I remember planting hardy begonias along that spot at Mom’s (just outside the porch gate) but they didn’t take, didn’t come back, and that was a few years ago. Is it possible that the seeds came with the stem cuttings? Seems highly unlikely. So: something in the soil I used to start the cutting. So: what else have I grown in that particular cell, or near enough to it that flecks of begonia seeds landed in the soil? More likely, and in fact very likely, as I think about it, is that there were traces of roots left in the soil from a previous cutting that may have died. (I left this propagation set out in the garage too long and it got very cold in October before I brought it into the house; I remember throwing away some dead African violet leaves and probably something else that didn’t survive the cold and lack of light.)
Still I am thinking about begonia seed and how I once saved some, the small papery triangular capsules from hardy begonias, and how it’s possible I scattered some on the soil and forgot about it. Such things take time. And luck. We’ll see. It could be the little rex begonia. It could be something else. How many seeds make up the top few inches of soil, waiting, waiting?
Reads in the Trees 