Weeds

Many times, when I think of ruins, I think of summer. Warm summer days, with the smell of plants, the sounds of insects, the feel of sweat on my forehead and arms. Is that goldenrod I smell? Queen Anne's lace? Or some other tall, wild weed, growing like the inexorable force of nature that it is? The smell of weeds is, I think, distinctly different from the smell of grass lawns and flower gardens. It has a feral apsect.

Weeds and ruins go together. They share one key quality -- they are, for the most part, unwanted. And so the weeds grow in the ruins, wild and untrammeled. Left untouched long enough, they become a blanket which covers and hides the ruins from our eyes. Think of the jungles of Central America, where centuries of unchecked plant growth have turned the ruins of ancient pyramids into green hills. 

There is nothing quite like that around here, but, if humans disappeared and nature were left to its own devices, there would be. Probably most of the structures we have built would collapse, unlike the sturdy stone pyramids of the Aztecs and Maya, and the green hills would be more like gentle green mounds.

But I don't expect to see that in my lifetime. In any event, I am happy to experience a small fraction of it, when I come across the old foundation of a house, out in the woods, or in a field… and I smell the weeds, warmed by the summer sun. -- PL