Her Family Seed :: Short Story Stories Farming Essays

Her Family Seed It is the dawn of summer; in a large open corn field, a tiny girl with skinny legs stands at the edge. Far from her, a giant tractor ravishes and cracks the earth. The sharp deadly blades cut deep. With each cut, a fresh color of the earth appears, much darker than the layer before. With each slash, the air fills with fresh earthy scents of dead-decayed corn plants. In another gash, another grasshopper flies into the air, away from danger. With each catastrophic advance, the tractor makes, a seed of corn is planted. In a similar way the tiny girl’s family seed is planted within her. Within the seed’s embryo lies her family history and individuality. At this tender age, community and family values are continually deposited on her without her realizing it. The seed is buried into a graveyard of corn plants; where she can’t see it, just as she does not feel her family seed being planted. Even worse, it was planted into a field of innocence, constantly haunted by desires to run around half-naked in the rain when the rains finally came and a ride on the tractor. She does not realize that her family depends on these corn fields for food. At nights, she sits by the open fire roasting corn with her many brothers. The tiny girl does not know that her many brothers are actually her cousins and sons of her mother’s friends. As there is plenty of corn, her mother provides a home for all her sons. The corn fields also provide food for her neighbors that do not have enough. Her neighbors, the Bulunga family, live in three beautiful stick and mud huts, with thatched roofs. Like a centripetal force, the corn fields pull together her sense of family. Her innocence nurtures the seed until it slowly crawls out and bursts into green. And grows. This is the story about the 'seedling hood' within her, a part of her childhood unearthed. Right now, standing here by the old thatched hut, she looks up and sees a carpet of green. Their corn plants. Like broken pieces of glass on a side walk, the droplets of dew on the leaves reflect early morning light. She picks up her hoe. With a single hand she places it on her tiny fragile shoulders.