Fiddleheads

[Guest guest]

In certain parts of the world grow a plant that is harvested before its

head unfolds. It is tight, hard, almost embryonic in shape, perhaps an

inch or two in length, dark green, and delicious steamed and served with

pepper and melted butter.

 

Whether I see fiddleheads growing in nature or piled for display at the

supermarket, they seem to me to be in pain. They are so tightly closed.

 

And in nature, even as they slowly open (if they grow wild near you and

you walk by them daily) it seems like such a painful ordeal as they

gradually begin to reveal their final appearance.

 

One day you will walk past these plants and they will be fiddleheads no

more, but organisms made only to greet the sun with every square inch of

their being.

 

As fragile as they appear, openly and fearlessly they take the strongest

of rains and winds. Take them? They are fed by the water and their

ultimate seeds are spread by the winds.

 

I see lots of fiddleheads, piled up with other fiddleheads at the

market, where everyone goes. Their future is on a plate alongside a lamb

chop.

 

I have to get away, into the woods, to see partially opened fiddleheads,

or their final form: a lacy fern standing free, blowing in the wind like

an answer.

 

---Jerry