Dead Flowers Redux

Redux is from the Latin for "to bring back," which is funny, in a way.

I ripped these geezers out of the wet earth, along with fistfuls of dead grass, gill-over-the-ground, baby dill and bolted arugula. It was like what I imagine when I imagine bushwhacking through the jungle, if the jungle were dead; I smelled my way through a wasteland of bristling stalks on hands and knees. I shook seeds from dry pods onto the ground. I emerged with mysteriously bloody hands. I lost both my earrings.

I wrote about dead things a year ago, when I was exposed this way to the elements, raw-handed every day. This year I'm cushed and propped in a desk chair, mostly, but last night I slept the serious kind of sleep, deep and thick and twitchy with dreams I don't remember. I feasted with good friends in a wintery way, put my scarf on a dog, saw my breath in the air on the way home.

This wasn't the season I imagined I'd have, nor the jungle garden. Dead flowers are a relief: I give up the grief of this messy season, pile the debris and let it rot. Break out the planning notebook to reimagine what Flower Scout can be and is. Got ideas? It's a good time to tell me.