One night

Little flakes the color of soil, weightless, invisible when dropped into the dirt. To expect anything from such was an act of faith. Maybe mustard seeds are smaller, but these cosmos and zinnias planted in my front garden...?

First a shoot, then a leaf, a few leaves, and inch by inch they grew. The zinnias soon produced flowers--big garish-colored petal-dense beauties. The cosmos just sprouted quantities of hair-like leaves, with a lavender flower here and there, until just recently when flower heads have popped out everywhere. The garden a week ago was vibrant, even this late.

Then a night of frost and what a transformation: the color of the flowers had darkened and dissipated to brown, vibrant green had turned gray, the turgor of the leaves relaxed and they drooped hangdog. Plants that had stood face to the sun expectant had become, in an instant, standing corpses.

This is what annual means: seed to weed in a season. Invisible yet vigorous life in the summer when I planted you, visible but vivid death after one night's sweeping of cold's scythe. Maybe in your accounting, cosmos and zinnias, it's been a good year: seeds were set and dispersed (ideally) and another generation is ready. But the forlorn assortment of sticks festooned with tattered leaves standing aghast, never more to move, grow, seek the sun, flower, gives me pause.

It wasn't as if you were sick or senescent. No matter, you've been stripped and skeletonized overnight. The garden has become a cemetery and you stand like your own markers.

Cue reflections on the transitoriness of life, the fragility of existence, and so on, but what strikes me is how, ahead of each seed is this story: effulgence of life and rigor of death with but a single night between them. No drama, no reprieve; simply, it's over.

Worth it, would you say? Of course, it's our way of life. It's what we do.