splash

The dynamism in the veins of the cabbage leaves seem to derive from a sudden impact as they respond to the solar intensity that beats down, washing them with the energy they strive to catch.

This beauty grows on one of the boundaries of the Childrens Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where my two youngest children are finishing their last week of camp. It's been amazing, my son now knows the names of weeds I've pulled up in ignorance my entire gardening career, and knows what it feels like to pull them up, if they resist or not, and if you can eat them. He's been coming home with harvests, multicolored chard, kale, turnips, basil and lately cucumbers, which he peels and slices himself. The little one loves to bring me nasturtiums, "the spicey ones" she calls them as she watches in wonder as I eat them.

These efforts to reinvigorate our relationship with agriculture do a little to redemocratize and and redeem the most basic luxury, soil, as seen in the Childrens Garden program, more so at Added Value in Red Hook and at various community gardens throughout the city which seem incredibly powerful agents in restoring lost richness to the barren figure of modern man, to teach that freedom is much more than a stop at 7-eleven and 6 Flags. I'm grateful my children have been able to attend this camp with this focus on the kind of thrills that are, without a doubt, worthy of a future.