Story Time

For Carry On Tuesday prompt #72: It started out as a feeling
which then grew into a hope
You may use all or any part of it for your poem or prose.
http://carryontuesdayprompt.blogspot.com/

Story of The Little Seed

The little seed slept. Curled inside of its hard tight shell, it never felt the fall, or the impact. Never felt the earth embrace it, hold it to its chest, wrapping itself around the tiny fetalized kernel. Perhaps it was the moisture that softened the shell, but the seed awoke slowly, began to stretch until it found an opening. It reached beyond itself for the first time, found the dark moist soil that surrounded it. Grasped hold and settled in. It was hungry.

No one could say why this particular little seed awoke, while its brother slept on, never to awaken at all. As it stretched its hunger increased. So it sent out even more fragile tendrils, always seeking for the food that would sustain it. Some of those tendrils dug in, holding the little guy in place, while others reached for something more, for something it couldn’t quite define but knew intuitively that whatever it was it was absolutely necessary. The soil around it only grudgingly made room for those fragile tendrils as they continued to push and shove their way to whatever it was that drew them onward, ever upward. It was hard work.

Eventually, the fragile tendrils of the little seed broke the surface. Ahhhh, freedom. Space all around, and light, good nurturing light. Yes, this is the place it had been looking for. The right place. The little guy shook himself out, knew that here it could grow and become whatever it was intended to be. It basked in the sunlight and in its own success at having arrived. It’s new friend, the sun, smiled on him, as it rose higher and higher. But it was warm, then warmer, and then it got hot. Whew! If his new friend didn’t back off, the small seed might not survive. It was wilting in the light, feeling drained and enervated. This was even harder work. How could it get to this place it was supposed to be, only to find the kind of heat where it might not be able to hang on, maybe not make it?

But, just in time, his new friend pulled clouds over her face, and blew a cool wind over his countenance, giving him the chance to regroup and pull himself together. Then the rain came. He needed the rain, he was so thirsty. But the rain kept falling, pounding on him, beating him into the ground, as though trying to force him back into that darkness where he had just come from. This was all so hard, so difficult, and he feared that he would drown if something didn’t happen soon.

The rain stopped and the sun came out again to dry him off. He just knew he could count on his friend. He watched her slowly descend. She was so beautiful as she threw out those wonderful colors as though she was waving good-bye. Good-bye? And the night came on. The darkness and all of its own scarey sounds. The wild creatures that came to snuffle around him, sniff at his presence, while he shivered and watched them swallow up a few of his like companions. All that hard and difficult work. Would it only end in continued darkness, either in this place he had thought was freedom, or in the belly of one of those strange and grunting four-leggeds that crept though this oh so horrible place?

No, it was getting a bit lighter, and there, far away he saw her face, coming to smile on him again. His friend. He had made it through the first day, and the first night. Maybe even, if he could be strong enough,  to his own eventual fruitfulness.

And so ends the story of the little seed, its first day and night.

Small seed of feeling,
huddled beneath gray cloud of doubt
struggling through drought and downpour,
its only nurture:
hope,
to bring it to fruition.

*the line in the prompt is from  Regina Spektor’s delightful song The Call