Good Garden

He might be from Honduras or Mexico. Could even have been born right here in New Orleans. Doesn’t matter. In his broken English, he made my day. I sit, wet with sweat and consider his, “Hey, man. Very good garden.” And I wonder if the moringa and guava reminded him of home. I wonder if he sees the way cherry tomatoes wind and stretch between pigeon pea. I wonder if he knows that all of what exists now will be gone by Tuesday.

Some of what I pull up will live and some will die, and as my homey Kurt likes to say, “So it goes.” 

I saw the relationships building this morning right before I put my foot through my own windshield, the way the gulf penstemon once again began to bloom and the mamou reached out her arms like an octopus, the way the beans and pigeon peas have just sprouted around the jelly melon, the way these are plants that would take to much trouble to pull up. 

I killed some ants this morning. Please don’t tell anybody. Perhaps my world is darker because of this. Perhaps the way the young leaves droop when I put the plants into pots and find places for them to hide in shade at my house are the souls of these ants getting back at me. These plants I believe will grow healthy and strong. I will find spots nearby. I will make folding signs so that walkers from the neighborhood might come and these plants from the school might go into the ground.

Adrian said he saw the dude took the papaya, but by the time he was able to get out to him the guy was gone. White guy in a truck, green or blue with one of those camper things on the back. I dug a couple dozen plants up before putting my foot through the windshield.

You know what it was did it? Spite, I think. Seeing the way the edges were perfect before my disturbance, before I dug the plants that would otherwise be lost. I wanted to make a video of these plants and so stood atop my truck, right near where a bullet had grazed the steel, and take the video I did. And when I stepped down, smash, my already swollen and damaged ankle through the glass.

I drove down Poland like a man just hit with a bowling ball. Calm. Calm because I know this is a part of it all, and who is to argue with all? 

The Mexicans on Urquhart pantomimed somebody throwing a brick. I said, “No. Dumbshit,” pointed at myself. Lifted and pointed to my foot. Said, “Foot. Smash.”

I sit sucking a guava, and I know I have thousands of seeds and thousands of opportunities and my journey is always beginning. The patience that comes with keeping each seed teaches me now. Right here and now. And now I think, the next time I see the Spanish speaking guys from Urquhart, I will give them a guava, and who knows, maybe they will save the seeds and maybe someday, somebody will say to them, “Good garden,” just before it is gone.