GREEN SPACE

I went to an old neighborhood bakery-cum-coffee shop this afternoon, across the street from a community garden plot I rented two years rolling. Here, I watched the fruits of my labor - errrrr more accurately, the vegetables of my labor, grow from tiny, passive seeds to smack talkin,’ booty shakin,’ rubber neckin,’ I’mon kick yo azzzz Zucchini Giants. I remember the first spring how I was so desperate to have something grow, I had even watered the weeds. By the time the carrots were ready, I was a cold, calculating crab grass puller. You should have seen my technique. I use to go there after dinner and stay until I couldn’t see my own hands through the dark.

And now the lot is empty, the plots are leveled, and there is a ‘for sale’ sign pinned in the ground. I suppose it was bound to happen. Garden spots like that don’t generate the kind of green that matters.