Too long allowed to run wild, the grape vines at my side yard fence are tough to kill. From a few centers of expansive energy, shoots and suckers snake out in every direction, up the chain link on both sides, out into the grass, up and out to entangle the branches of my plum and peach trees, strangling and shading my vegetables, layering leaves into green grottoes.
And the number of profusion points has multiplied. Instead of all the vines growing out of two or three hairy old stems, there are grape vine geysers spouting at separate places in the lawn, suggesting that even underground, the grapes are pushing imperialistically.
I usually strip the fence in the fall and make big bundles of grape vines to put out as yard waste. This year I want (finally) to get ahead of the game and cut back the vines before they create their alternative reality. Maybe I’ll actually quench the ambition of this plant, not an easy thing to do.
Still as I finger through the dense lattice of horizontal and vertical shoots and canes to find the deepest place to snip, I can’t help but admire this plant.
Look at you, vine, a few days ago tentative and tender, now burgeoning, exuberant. Your newest leaves so glossy, just unfolded, like a crisp, new map. And the tendrils which tip each shoot–sensitive, searching, blind but bold. Alas, a quick clip and your space-filling glee comes to an abrupt end, and your glory to a draggle.
Should I mourn you, vine? You’d cover me over if you could. But speaking not as a viticulturist, nor even as the old Italian couple from whom we bought the house and who constructed the arbor over which you (I’m sure it was you, vine) grew, provided shade, and, yes, even wine, that is, speaking only as a fellow contender, you impress me. And I’m sure you’ll be back for another bout.
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It was only as I cleaned afterwards that I took time to think about what I’d just done, to research proper terms, to review what I’d actually seen or felt in my pruning, and to address this pesky plant with some of the respect it deserves.
In fact, I often recognize my encounters long afterwards, when some of the interesting details I’d like to look more closely at are gone. Still the encounter is itself, and it led to the encounter of the composition of this post, and will lead to what encounters next? Who knows?