A Polyamory Handbook Invites Me to Imagine A New Front Yard

 

“Even in my own fantasy I cannot see how to love the way the world begs me to. Like a weed, but what we’ve named a weed is just soil surrendering” – Joshua Elbaum

 

Did you know grass can grow 24 inches tall? Become its own jungle for the crawling? We have been cutting down their redwoods and calling it neighborly. We’ve been wasting water– their water and ours– for the utterance of “lush” or “tidy”. 

 

I have dreamed a yard that does not honor green at its core, nor a shrowd of white to protect it. One that taunts the lawnmower, lets it rust or run in another sphere of living. I have dreamed a yard that is observed with mouths agape– aghast in horror or in wanting.

 

I will plant mandrake and alder, cinnamon and rosemary, yarrow and mugwort, belladonna, basil, lavender, even rue. All the herbs to protect each extension of my love. Have an itch in your throat? A stomach that rumbles? The Earth will have its remedy here. 

 

I will honor the growth through teas, salves, and tinctures. Take only what I need, resist guilt as it gives me more than I expected. The plants expand and breathe and perhaps grow toward me. Can phototropism be redirected to a new source? Can someone grow toward nature, too?

 

I will name each seedling for a different love, planted by four steady hands. Nurture, feed, water, pray at the altar of their roots for a blooming. I will not blame the wilting on the flowers, nor give credit only to the stigmas and styles. 

 

We will tend this landscape together. All of us. Gardeners filtering through revolving doors of kisses and caring, softened conflict that mutates into understanding. We will build a word together for all the little things and think ourselves among the bees and butterflies that thrive.