Grasses

I’m enchanted by grasses, in all their many shapes, textures, and hues, and in all seasons.

Their story starts when early rains trigger fresh green shoots that push up through last year’s older, matted browns. They grow tall and dance in April breezes with poppies, owl’s clover, and irises…and then slowly bleach into summer’s blondes. Come fall they’re windblown, frosted, splayed, and gone to seed… before returning to the ground to rise anew next spring.

Some species stand tall while others bend in waves. Their gestures show a record of their days: Of thunderstorms; windstorms; early frosts and snow that has now melted. The hollow that’s left where deer bedded down last night. The crisscross paths of wet tracks and footprints. Or the longer arc: Was it a lush year? Yet more drought? So much life, so many tales.

You may be thinking “Jeez, man, they’re just grasses.” OK, so am I somehow different? I don’t trouble much with “human” vs. “non-human” these days. As Jeffers wrote, Not man apart. Rocks, trees, streams, and yes, meadows, are all old friends now—kinda like family. And this is what I do: circle back to the same places again and again to check in with these simplest of things.

A meadow is a clearing—a home and haven within the sheltering walls of oaks, redwoods, or pines. It’s a lighted stage. It hosts not only grasses, insects, and animals, but my own memories and hopes, too. And each time I’m here the light, shapes, shadows, sounds, and scents are instantly familiar…but they’re also always new.

As I make pictures on this chilly fall morning, I hear whispers all around me that draw me in. Their cycles keep me rooted. And isn’t this my place, too? I’m thinking of Yeats’s poem, “The Wheel.” Both the dreams of days past and, literally, the seeds of each season to come are lying dormant at my feet.

See you next spring.

By Scott Atkinson

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