Because of the relentless persistence of plants

Photos by Carol Tulpar

In the tiny space around the large metal claw feet of lampposts, with concrete all around, flowers and grasses grow and bloom.

In the heat of summer in the midst of a large paved parking lot, a volunteer cosmos blooms in the narrow crack between the slabs of cement.

 


In White Rock this past spring, a pumpkin seed, presumably one that escaped from last October's Halloween pumpkin carving festivities, grew into a small pumpkin vine in the crack between the sidewalk slab and edging, a place only a couple of centimetres wide.

Because of the persistence of grass, of fruiting plants, of trees, of flora that grows in fresh and salt water, life on earth goes on. Every day, as the poet Basho reminds us, "the grass grows by itself." So do the other plants.