Those bulbs, those small brown packages of hope. They look dead. All boxed up in dusty packages on clearance racks of large monocultured chain stores, underneath florescent lights, with bits of themselves flaking off like a bag of onions in the grocery store. The bulbs are on clearance racks this time of year because the chain stores are eliminating the outdoor gardening sections to make way for Christmas. The population's attention has shifted, again. But, it's not really past the season to plant bulbs quite yet.
And, there they sat, the silent promises of beauty and scent, of rebirth and rejuvenation, nearly religious chalices, all but ready to be tossed aside. I reclaimed a few packages, knelt in the wind, dug through dead debris and cold earth for hours. I measured the correct depth for each type of bulb, and laid each in its rightful place. And smiled. What better ritual for accepting oncoming Winter and the loss of daylight savings time?
