The Seed

Today’s poem is about patience and potential and words which gaze off into the hazy future. Actually, this is a children’s story I wrote a long time ago. Upon reviewing it, however, I discovered that it still held some valuable lessons for all of us. This is a story about one tiny seed and how it waits for the perfect time to grow. Turns out that my simple children’s story is about adults who are hunkered down and waiting for an opportunity, a someday they have been hoping for. It’s for children who feel like they are just small pawn in a grown up world and need a little hope that they may eventually be larger, in every sense of the word, and make a difference in that big wide world. Upon reflection, and utterly unrelated to my original intentions, I discover that this poem may also be about abortion. In the story my insignificant, and somewhat personified, seed begins essentially as an inanimate object, a spec lying dormant beneath a rock in the mountains. When the time is just right that seed sprouts and, in time, grows into a massive tree. The lesson is that even the smallest things are imbued with potential. A seed carries the genetic code of the mature living thing ... not only the hope, but the perfect possibility of life. It’s unclear when the seed becomes a tree and that is the beauty, the mystery, the miracle. That is how I find myself feeling about a human fetus. There’s just no saying when it ceases being a something and begins being a someone. God only knows, and I don’t mean that in merely the rhetorical sense. It’s a difficult thing to legislate morality and I actually believe that a woman should have rights over her own body. The only problem is that somewhere along the line, when that something becomes a someone, suddenly it is entitled to rights of its own. Just as in the seed, that perfect possibility exists in any fertilized egg and I’m not sure that we’re wise enough to draw a line somewhere and declare when it becomes a person. That beauty, that mystery, that miracle is beyond my full comprehension and I must, therefore, stand as the advocate of that miracle. Today’s commentary began with a completely different focus and ends with my being surprised and enlightened by my own words. No bible thumping today. No soap box speech. Just read my innocent little children’s story and see if it takes you there as well. And ... remember, no matter how small you may be, that the tiniest seed has the heart of a tree.

The Seed
Once upon a cold winter, down under the snow
On a mountain so high nothing ever could grow
Where the wind whipped and whistled in blizzards of white
And the only thing colder than day was the night
Way up on that mountain, tucked under a stone
There was one tiny seed, one seed, all alone
On that cold, lonely mountain where no one would go
The seed waited patiently, wanting to grow
It waited and waited as every seed should
Knowing someday the time would be right, yes it would
It waited through summers when rocks were parched dry
It waited beneath the clear blue mountain sky
It waited through winters so frozen and glum
When it seemed as if spring time never would come
But early one morning when the mountains were sunny
The seed sat up straight, it was feeling so funny
The waiting was over, the seed knew what to do
At last it was time and that tiny seed grew
At first it was just a small root and a sprout
But soon a few leaves and more roots had popped out
The seed grew and it grew from the spring to the fall
And before the snow came it was ten inches tall
But the winter was hard and the snow was so deep
That the seed couldn't grow, it was frozen in sleep
When spring time returned and snow melted away
The seed grew again and it grew every day
Until it wasn't a seed any more, not at all
It turned into a tree even though it was small
But year after year it grew and it grew
And soon it was taller than me or than you
It kept right on growing until it was full grown
And now it is making some seeds of it's own
So the seed has a lesson for us, one and all
That if you are patient, even though you are small
You can be something special and beautiful too
You may just have some waiting and growing to do
So, remember, no matter how small you may be
That the tiniest seed has the heart of a tree
By Frank Carpenter©