A Gracious Plenty

'Sometimes something comes along and tears your roots right out of the ground, and that's when you know you been planted too long,' he says.

I agree.

'Sometimes you been growing one thing in your garden for too many years, and then everything dies. You gotta give the soil time to replenish itself.'

'You talking to me in code?' I ask him.

'Shit no,' he says. 'I'm just talking to pass the time.' And he laughs.

-- A Gracious Plenty, by Sheri Reynolds