Dry Husks

Straight ahead, outside my window, hang the dry husks of bean pods that I never harvested during the growing season. Withered and yellowed, they hang like forgotten corpses, tangled in the vines which have shed their leafy cover. Long, lumpy, pale cocoons, they await for they know not what. They should have been ripped down and added to the compost heap, but it never got done. Neither did the autumn rototilling, nor the gathering in of tomato cages. I'll look at them all winter long now, like missed opportunities, and regret the time wasted doing things that will never be remembered. But those dry husks hanging there contain new life with potential. Like rain clouds ready to burst and shower the earth with water, they may pop come spring and shower the earth with seed. Volunteer beans could spring up and begin the ascent up the poles, where they, too, will produce. But those husks out there now, they are done for. Just shells, jewel boxes, treasure troves, exposed and vulnerable, and only good for what they hold within. When my body becomes a dry husk, withered and done for, what I do today will nurture the growth of treasure within that will only be discovered when the covering falls away and turns to dust.