In Praise Of Seeding Poem by Hans Ostrom

Out of the orange smoke
of California poppies materialize
thin sage-green scrolls, in which
tiny prophecies of next year’s
poppies harden, darken. Lupine-
pods go black-grey, too. They bulge
and stiffen, bags of loot. Dill
supports its canopy of seeds with
spindly architecture. Hollow-boned
sparrows perch on these green, hollow
stalks, gorge. They will defecate
seeds later, encasing them in
hot, effective nitrogen, part of
a plan Evolution stumbled on
way back when When didn’t
exist yet. By backing off a bit
from Sun, Earth signals a hemisphere
of vegetation to go to seed. A
deluge of cones, pods, hips, sacs,
fronds, and fruits surges across
a terrestrial moment in space,
predicting vegetation’s recurrence
and able to deliver the goods, already
outlasting Winter yet to come.
Seeding’s a vast, well organized,
ordinary miracle. Seeding is God
at God’s most professional. It is a
counter-apocalypse of indetermination.
Fall concerns ferocious patience.
It thinks several moves ahead.