Notes From A Hackberry Seed is part of Seth Bockley’s ‘Nature Speaks!’ series. This initiative, created through the poet’s position as Director of Creative Engagement for Sovereign Nature Initiative, a web3 tech/theory/art collective, imagines giving human voice to nonhuman experiences, while recognizing the impossibility of fully translating those experiences. Helena Sarin’s visual rendering pays homage to the hackberry seed itself, the wood of the tree, its germination, pulsating, becoming and the smile and energy with which the poet delivers the poem.
Seth Bockley x Helena Sarin
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NOTES FROM A HACKBERRY SEED
Do you feel it?
Potential.
I always feel it, I’m a seed, it’s actually all I feel, 24/7. It’s dark in here, but I’m buzzing, almost glowing. I’m basically supervibrating with the energy of my potential, with the prospect of germination. Yeah… germination, it’s not the sexiest word, but it’s kind of a sexy feeling. Like you have a good idea and you’re about to say it. Like you’re about to walk into the nightclub where you will fall in love across the dance floor, just with eye contact. Like you’re pregnant with the future.
It’s a chemical feeling. I guess all feelings are.
But mine is pure right now, distilled.
Like you, I was first a zygote, made from an ovule and pollen. But then when you sprawled out in your water womb I calcified, concentrated, bunched up and built strong, durable. Like a bomb, like a collapsing star. I’m ready to explode, into something. What will I be? I giggle to myself at night in my shell, just wondering.
Anyway, I’m feeling my potential.
Hope you feel it too.