The Gardener
February 25th, 2007
I woke up with more on my left forearm. I sat up in bed, fingering the stems sprouting from my skin. A few had blossomed overnight: small blue flowers, pale fragile petals. I plucked one of them, felt no pain, pulled out the rest, still felt nothing. The hole left behind was not bloody. It was little more than a pore, and before my eyes it shrank.
-How many more, she asked, her eyes closed.
-About four or five, I said, plucking another.
-I see more on your back, near your spine, she said. Buds.
I felt around, brushing them with the back of my hand.
-What are you going to do? she asked.
-I don’t know. Keep letting them grow. Maybe let myself be covered.
I thought about it. I could let myself live for them. Love the soil I’m becoming. Enrich it with the right foods. Nitrogen, phosphorous. How could I modify my diet? I thought about books, web sites, ways to educate myself. I wanted suddenly to do right by them. For weeks now I’d been destroying them methodically every morning, collecting the refuse in small plastic bags. For what? To send off to labs? To collect as evidence if they ever stop growing? I don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to do, to preserve them.
They never grow during the day. The pores either close up right away or they close over time. And they’re never so big, or in a place so obvious, that they get noticed. But they used to just be on my chest, and see how they’ve spread. Who’s to say one morning I won’t wake up with them all over my neck, cheeks, forehead. Little blue sprays across my upper lip, a gentle meadowy mustache.
-Where are you going? she asked.
-Just to the porch. I just need to stand up, walk around. I’ll be right back hon.
Outside the world isn’t stirring. Night’s palm still pressing the world down gently, minute by minute easing up and letting dawn emerge. Like grass slept on and popping up blade by blade.
I want to go outside and walk in those woods. I want to be naked and let the forest see me as I am, see what I have to offer. I could settle down like a bear, wounded from a shotgun, a great slumbering heap, resigned. And let the days pass, and the flowers flourish. Squirrels, ants, grubs could come and see what I’ve brought. And rejoice in me, and I in them. Day by day, sink further into the earth, until there’s less of me above then there is below. Feel my humanity rooting out, draining from my new root-tendrils at the same time that they drink up nutrients and water.
I want to say something, fill the air. I push the words down, inside: “Thank you for this. I don’t want to hurt them. I was selfish but I don’t want to be anymore. They don’t need to be so pale. They can be richer, darker, they can be everywhere, they can leap and dance all over this old skin. I’m so sorry I’ve been frightened and ashamed. Breathe on them, give them courage. And show me where to rest, where to burrow in, show me the cupped palm of earth you’ve always saved for me, near a brook, beneath a strong old tree, crying out like a ring’s stoneless socket.”
