Emergent from the muck, the succulent green arrowheads point to the sun. The leaves bask in the light, building reserves of sugar and starch deep into the rhizomes buried in the ooze. This is the season of plenty, of excess and exuberance. Lay down layers of tissue, the investment in the future. Other plants in your pond are content with floating on the surface. Not you. You thrust into the sky and capture the light. You are unafraid.
Roots below the water, lavender flowers raised above the pond, you give away your nectar and pollen in exchange for the services of bees. Shallow-water show off, purple temptation, bounty of blossom, invitation to gluttony, sweet satisfaction. Lure the insects away from the safety of land, promise them honey, make them mules for your yellow pollen grains, drug them, fatten them, send them off as surrogate lovers to fertilize that neighbor so tantalizingly out of your reach. Beholden to winged servants, you do whatever it takes to satisfy their needs, then make them beg for more, but from someone else, another of your kind.
Come autumn, you will sacrifice your tower and regroup in the firmament. Sunk below the surface in October, you are fattened with stored goods, and you wait. You won’t freeze because the coldest water is at the surface, not down there. Your enemies, slowed by the cold, are not likely to find you. They would have to dig to reach you, but they are just barely able to stay alive. Such exertion is not an option. But even if they did manage to find you, your sentinel epidermis is nasty and repellent. Your layers of defense keep you safe. Your patience keeps you alive. Your savings guarantee your future. When the sun is once more high in the sky, you will rise again.
Owen Sholes 
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