The Greener Grass: An Observation and a Question

The saying goes that on the other side it’s greener, at least to the cows that extend their necks gingerly between the barbed strands to reach it as if it was the sweetest grass anywhere.

I don’t know about you, but to me it looks like the same old grass on either side.

But I have seen greener grass.

In the spring instead of raining, every day was sunny. As the rainless days crept on, the usual explosion of leaves was slowed, and then as if in stop-action time-lapse seemed to freeze in mid-burst, their development arrested by lack of water.

It was as if all the plants were holding their breath.

In the wetland the swamp grasses remained brown and brittle. Finally a chance spark of lightning or steel wheels on rails - or perhaps a carelessly tossed cigarette – ignited. In a moment the acres between the train tracks and the receded river were left charred. The few small trees that made their life among the grasses stood like black skeletons anchored in the black, bare mud.

After rain fell, new swamp grasses sprouted and began to grow. Unlike previous years there was no tangle of dead ancestors to fight through. It was as if the earth was new and this grass was the first grass ever.

The green of this grass was unlike any green I had ever seen – rich and vibrant and filled to overflowing with life, as if swamp grass were created for the first time that day. The brightness of the green was augmented by the background of black, so that each blade seemed to stand out.

Now the grass is tall. Where it meets the old grass that grew amid its customary litter of previous generations, it is like a seam between green carpets each of a slightly different shade. The new grass has retained its more vivid hue, thrusting up triumphantly from the scorched earth.

The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. The grass is greener that grows out of earth cleansed by fire.

What message does the Universe bring by this?