going to seed

the phrase “going to seed” implies a sort of slovenly falling into disrepair. a loss of vibrancy and vigor. a letting go. a giving up. but i was just thinking today about what grasses do here in the north, emerging just barely before april turns into may, growing anywhere from a couple feet tall, to seven or eight feet tall, halting erosion, sequestering carbon, looking beautiful, feeding the soil, and then, sometime in late summer, exploding in slow motion into elegant, graphic, and potent seed heads. in other words, what grasses do is go to seed. it doesn’t look to me like giving up.

various prairie grass seed heads