Unseen Buds

In the Seattle area, November and December brought us incredible, record-breaking weather. It has been a season of heavy rains, floods, early snow, icy roads, high winds, power outages, downed trees, and more. And yet, through it all, the three pots of pansies that sit on my front steps still bloom in deep shades of yellow, violet, and blue.

With the winter solstice just behind us, we can begin looking forward to spring, and to the millions of unseen seeds that lie deep within the soil, waiting, waiting, waiting.

Unseen Buds
By Walt Whitman

Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well,
Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every
square or cubic inch,
Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic,
unborn,
Like babes in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping;
Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them
waiting,
(On earth and in the sea–the universe–the stars
there in the heavens,)
Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless,
And waiting ever more, forever more behind.

(From this Soil: Selected Poems by Walt Whitman. Nature Company Classics, 1993).