The Crater
We moved to rural Indiana into a modest brick house with a garden of jet-back soil bursting with tomatoes and zucchini. Before we arrived, the previous owner hauled away the pool, the deck, and everything attached to it. What remained was a large sand-filled crater.
I imagined summer afternoons there—my children splashing in the water, the Allman Brothers drifting from a radio, a yellow umbrella shading a picnic table. They promised to return and fill the hole.
They never did.
The crater was lifeless, barren as moon rock. I tried to revive the desiccated pit. I mixed in lawn clippings and yard waste and borrowed dirt. Nothing took. Even the crabgrass and dandelions stayed away.
Then came the rains.
The crater flooded and reeked of rotting grass. For weeks it sat stagnant in the summer
heat. Eventually, the water evaporated,
the smell faded, and the sand darkened, stained black by the decay.
Before winter, before we moved away, I scattered wildflower seeds across the crater. Five packets for a buck.
The spring thaw brought flowers—yellow and pink and purple blossoms. The day we moved and the truck was loaded with our last possessions, I took a final walk around the house. I was not coming back. And there in the crater, the flowers swayed in the breeze and stretched toward the sun, petals spread open as the bees hovered.
About the author
Matthew Ryan is a writer in Florida whose work explores connection, redemption, and the meaning found in ordinary things.
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