A Winter walk

I paused to look at last year’s milkweed, it’s pods open and emptied.

The stalk, dry and dead.

A few seeds remained, clinging to the plant.

Perhaps afraid to venture out. Not knowing where the wind will send them.

Waiting, maybe, for a different wind, one to blow them west, when all the others had flown with the wind that had pushed them east.

Had they waited too long? Their chance to fly gone.

Have I waited too long? My chance to venture out gone.

Too afraid to let go of the past, and all the security that lies in it.

Too often we become mired in the past, ending up not even living in the present.

Reaching out, I freed the seeds from their nest.

With a deep breath I sent them west, the breeze catching them, to take them where it would.