Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Koshika Sandrasagra

Spring Garden
 
Plunging my hands into the black loamy dirt
I feel the thick dark soil between my fingers as it works its way under my long nails.
I do not use gloves or a trowel because there is something visceral and connected about the
Feeling of dirt
That I love.
It feels like life,
It smells like potential.
Damp and fertile and thick with unidentifiable bits of grit and grubs.
Heavy and dark.
My hesitance spurred by a thin thread of anxiety at the potential presence of earthworms and
woodlice wriggling between my fingertips.
Life
In its rawest form.
 
I’m watching green shoots break the surface
Of that still dark soil
The thin trickle of sunshine coaxes the spread of little branches
The quiet breath of trees
That are not trees yet, but are so full of promise
Of the hope that one day there will be a tree
Spreading its verdant green fecundity through this dark little garden.
And yet
Always there exists the threat of demise.
Sudden death
Of blight
Of slugs and snails and fungus and lichens that bloom across the green leaf surfaces.
 
My garden is like life. Pregnant with promise and fragrant with growing things.
Fragrant with leaf and mold and birth and death and decay.
It’s a vivid microcosm of the world, condensed into a little pocket of San Francisco.
Not always beautiful, but always wild.
Not always fecund and bursting with life
But sometimes still with sleep, silence and fallow. And always waiting
Waiting and waiting
For love, belief, hope and renewal.

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Koshika Sandrasagra (Koshi) is an Australian/Sri Lankan writer living in San Francisco. She started writing poetry at age 10, as a response to a particularly turbulent part of her childhood and the social and political unrest in Sri Lanka during the race riots of 1983 that resulted in decades of civil war. Today, she focuses on themes of isolation, connection, renewal – and the experience of being a brown, immigrant female who is a minority race even in her country of birth (she’s part Tamil and part Dutch Burgher). She’s writing again after a hiatus of almost 12 years, following the death of both her parents. Koshi is a recovering techie and an animal rights and environmental advocate.She’s also founder of a fledgling ethical accessories brand Now Chase the Sun, and is launching her first line of jewelry that she’s designed, made by Tamil refugees living in refugee camps in India. She’s happily married to a San Francisco-based musician/song writer and they belong to a handsome rescue cockapoo dog called Jim Morrison, who is unreasonably spoiled and rules the household with an iron paw.