Saturday’s Jesus-on-the-cross post, I was talking about my squeezed amaryllis bulb’s flowers, not the cacophonous cactus ones I spoke of meanly some time back. Both those plants’ blossoms, though, blood red, share the same fate. Their seeds, I mean, if the plants live out under the sky. The seeds drop on the ground and get pecked up straightaway, or no rain falls and they lose all hope, or if it’s too rocky they can’t find a footing. Or else, hallelujah, they hit on good dirt and root and grow up to be mustard bushes where all manner of birds of the air can flit and chitter and poop. Now that’s salvation. That’s eternal life.

Except I don’t mean good dirt always. It might be rich rich, extra loaded with rot, allowing the wickedest of weeds to take over. So that’s heaven versus hell. Good persists persists persists, or evil runs rampant.

If only things were so tidy.

(See my own personal indoors bird? Stuck forever up there, collecting our household dust? More on it later.)

 


 

 

 

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