hydroponic ovenbird On a day with enough sun to hope by, I went out to the garden to plant promises. Between the ferns I tucked the roots of red geraniums, and patted down the earth around the probing leaves of a variegated hosta. Worms rose from the warming soil while I cleared away last year’s dried grass and leaves and found beneath the crisping mulch a mason jar, which held inside its smooth transparency an unexpected world. I held the jar in my hands and saw a small contained ocean—clear briny water waving with aquatic plants, a scrim of moss and algae, small stones and a sandy bed, and swimming like water born fireflies, dozens of translucent shrimp of the genus Artemia. They must have caught the glint of sky reflecting off my eyes because they came to the edge of the jar, all of them jostling for a chance to see, and the largest one approached with courage and resolve and began to sing. I could hear its salty voice clearly through the glass as if there were nothing but air between us. It sang a song of belonging, telling me a tale in verse about its place in the complex web of the ecosystem. “We keep the water clean,” it sang. “We eat what rots and sip bacterial soup so the plants can grow and there is no poison.” When the final notes dissolved I set the jar back down among the fiddleheads and bleeding hearts. “What a strange and wondrous planting,” I thought to myself and hummed as I sunk my fingers deep into storied soil. 260410 what's it to you? who go blather from