My Journey to God

Twelve Seed Packs

At the age of twenty
a man buys a dozen seed packages.

I’ll plant, he thinks,
when there’s time to do the work.

He binds them with string
and shelves them in his garage

beside the sprayer he used only once.
Fifty years pass.

The papers fade into yellows
the shoplight removes color slowly

and the corners are darkened by dust.
Periods of moisture and dryness

extreme lows and record highs
combine to steal from the contents

a percentage of germination
until one or two maybe three dormant seeds
remain on the shelf in each pack.
At the age of seventy, he can’t explain why,

a man discovers what’s left.
He prepares a bed in the garden

scatters them all,
lets rain fall upon them,

lets the sun and earth do their work.
He rests. They root

they grow leaves and stalks.
Flowering, they fruit.

The seed returns to seed
after so many years in the dark.

By Joseph Foster

(Joseph Foster is a member of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Indianapolis.)†