![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/IMG_8922.jpg\" "\\"Hung")
<\/a>A new tree in every bundle<\/p><\/div>\n
You can see it by looking up, no not to heaven, but to trees.\u00a0 This is the season when they produce seeds like crazy.\u00a0 They are visible\u00a0 now, some getting ripe after their blossoms dried up and blew away like little bits of torn paper.\u00a0\u00a0 Most arrive without fanfare,\u00a0 seeds growing from branches by the thousands and thousands.\u00a0 This week, walking to work, I saw piles of little round seeds, half inch, paper-thin flying saucers with a tiny seed in the center, heaped along the sidewalk, in the gutter, along the edges of grassy lawns.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Like snow to be shoveled, the multitude of seeds<\/p><\/div>\n
How energetic and virile of trees to produce so many seeds.\u00a0 How sad, I suppose, that few, if any, in this manicured part of town where I work, among many federal buildings and near the National Mall, will ever sprout, grow and become a tree.\u00a0 What delights me is that almost every tree is producing seeds, performing this annual exercise.\u00a0 It’s like the world around me is inundated with potential, with life.\u00a0 I look at all of it and am inspired.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Cloudy, puffy, balls of life<\/p><\/div>\n
I love the process.\u00a0 I love the possibility.\u00a0 Each seed contains what it takes to become a\u00a0 tree, yet even in the wild, how could so many new trees all survive?\u00a0 Thousands and thousands of seeds produced by every tree, they must know what a long-shot life can be, how tenuous a seed’s chances are in this wild world.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/IMG_8780-300x225.jpg\" "\\"Scads")
<\/a><\/dt>\n- Many tufts of brown\/<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
\n- \n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/IMG_8863-300x225.jpg\" "\\"...so")
<\/a><\/dt>\n- Lying on the ground<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
These seeds are, for the most part, not very noticeable, yet there are millions of them all around.\u00a0 How funny, this subtle invasion arriving in camouflage.\u00a0 They are not brightly colored, the trees bearing them arrayed in splendor like cherry blossoms or tulips.\u00a0 This multitude of potential new life comes in shades of tan and brown, green or dirty white.\u00a0 It would be easy to think, by the time you step over piles in the gutter, “What a mess these trees make.\u00a0 Shouldn’t the city send a crew over here to clean this up?”\u00a0 I like that the trees quietly push on, doing what they’ve done for years, decades, some even centuries: sending the germs of new life out into the world.\u00a0 I also like discovering or at least noticing something really big that’s right under my nose, yet easy to ignore or take for granted.\u00a0 Like I stumbled on to some big secret.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/IMG_9025-300x225.jpg\" "\\"Life-bearing")
<\/a>An almost invisible invasion<\/p><\/div>\n
The secret is this: no matter what, life wins out in the end.\u00a0 Pavement and concrete aren’t the final word.\u00a0 This message is all around, crying out to be heard.\u00a0 Right now, it’s hanging by the truckload, seeds in a thousand trees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Life muscles on, fights to propagate, to reproduce itself.\u00a0 It won’t take no for an answer, even when that no is the pavement and asphalt and more people than the city hardly knows what to do with.\u00a0 Life’s insistent shout … Continue reading
- Lying on the ground<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n
- Many tufts of brown\/<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n