Tramahsthas had helped with the planting content in Ulgoth’s Beard. Earth was loosened, fresh soil layered with care, and seeds and bulbs brought to wounded ground in hope that life would return once more.
Her plannings to thank, their doing together in aim and deed.
Yet afterwards, sitting beside the campfire after dirt was cleansed from attire and body, beneath his nails and the scent of fresh turned earth and the decay of that certain place lingering in his nose, his thoughts lingered not upon the labour itself, but upon the nature of choosing and the outcome for nature.
Effectivity. Sustainability.
She, leading this deed, had spoken of strength. Of selecting only the hardiest seeds and the healthiest young plants. Strong growth. Resistant growth. Sturdy growth. Thoughtful care had gone into it, and none could deny the sincerity behind her work. It was a profound analysation. If not agricultural blend in aim for nature to return. It was stewardship. The wish to help wounded land survive.
Yet still the thought twitched within him.
Nature was not only the thriving flower standing tall beneath the sun. It was also the bent stalk eaten by deer before its bloom. The seed carried away by birds hunger. The mushroom blooming from rot. The insects nesting within what others deemed failure. A forest did not endure because only the strongest things lived within it. Often it endured because countless small and uncertain lives intertwined together.
A flower consumed by hare or beetle had still served life.
A fallen tree fed roots yet unseen.
Even loss belonged to the turning.
Waxing and waning.
If only just sun would reign, where is the sleep? Of only night would comfort the ground, where develops energy?
In his understanding of the world, too much choosing could make the weave of the cycle thinner.
Mono or Many?
He thought upon how often folk sought certainty in living things. The strongest crop. The most resistant herb. The most successful growth. Yet wilderness rarely worked by a single measure of worth. What seemed weak one season might return strongest after harsh winter. What appeared useless might shelter another living thing unseen beneath leaf or root.
Perhaps that was why he chose differently.
Not without thought. Never careless.
But listening more than directing.
Through the rituals and the camps working, they had worked with soil, seeds, bulbs or tubers. Those “
left overs” where taken towards Ulgoth’s Beard to Support
her task to witch he had reached out.
Some seeds had been scattered where the wind felt right upon the skin. Some planted where insects already gathered. Some chosen for orally taught memory, omen, or simple feeling difficult to place into words. Not every bulb needed to become a thriving flower. Some would fail. Some would feed. Some would vanish into the earth and return years later when conditions welcomed them.
That too was life.
The wilds were not orderly gardens striving toward perfection. They were conversation. Exchange. Hunger and bloom together. Growth woven with decay.
And perhaps the task was not always to determine what deserved continuation.
Perhaps sometimes it was enough to invite life gently back… and allow the land itself to answer in its own way.
Birds that eat seeds.
Worms that devour roots.
Beetles nesting in bulbs.
Vermin that eat worms and beetles.
Mole and Marten that eat …
Hawks that eat …
All the cycle needs.
And in the end, as he had Pinto soothed and bathed within the spring’s river-arm flowing into the Chiontar, he couldn’t help him but humming and chuckle. More often over one particular thought.
And int this particular case, both facets of working or wild gardening were needed.
Then he found back to the bonfire of the camp to tell the few present about the fleeting days and nights past.
Where the badger found rest.
The wolf protected unseen.
The pony finally got to eat and was left in peace.
