There is a
ragged edge of land just behind where I live. It looks so disrespected. The
property is duly defiled on the outside and in; police come at the beckoning of
neighbors who wish for calm at one a.m. as straggling humans yell
and throw beer bottles. The dirt is drier than arid and filled with frail weeds
that seem weakened, ready to slump over. There is disarray, the feeling that nobody
really cares about this stretch of earth several feet wide and half a block
long. Garbage tucks itself into the seemingly-barren earth, candy-wrapper-junk-food
residue from the junior high school children who, twice a day, move in thick lines
like ants upon a formic acid trail, along that sidewalk beside the unloved
patch of ground. What flourishes there are cockroaches, an abundant community that crawls out in the middle of the night to scamper in their usual and apparent haste. I have sneaked a
peak through a hole in the fence and within the confines of the property there
is garbage, metal piping, tall weeds and empty food containers; clearly it is a
dumping ground for what was once useful, or perhaps what might later be useful. Sometimes mangy
looking dogs appear with heads poking out above the six foot high wooden fence;
I can only guess they have climbed atop debris in the yard and wait in anxious
heat for the moment to lash out.
I had hope when
the roofers came a few weeks ago: that
perhaps the land would be loved under the careful tending of a family. That
hope was increased when I heard that the owner perhaps wants to sell the place;
his prayer for a sale would only be answered if a total restoration occurred on
his land.
But then I
remembered the haphazardness of the humans who visit that small patch of land: trucks in various states of disarray and
disrepair appear randomly, never a consistent pair in the driveway; young, foul-mouthed girls
and a stroller sometimes stay long stretches on the edges of the house or
sometimes confined within it; other times, young men with voices too loud for
close quarters practice their Olympian skills of throwing, grunting, screaming,
swearing, bottle-hurtling, and alcohol-drenched laughing. The humans at the house are as sad and love-needy as the forgotten strip of earth. And my hope flailed
for its life in the ocean of contrariness.
* * *
And then today I
saw it: hope, care for the land,
attention, beauty! As I tried to avert my gaze from what I’d been feeling as the
most disturbed strip of unloved land - just as I sometimes want to divert my
attention away from the sight of somebody struggling, the trauma in the news, or
other somber tragedies my sensitive heart cannot bear - rising up from the dirt something brightly-colored caught my eye:
two perfect zinnias
milky rose pink,
and
dark sunrise
orange
tall and strong,
healthy and cheery;
hope.
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
