Low-Hanging Fruit

I’ve recently been introduced to the literary gold mine and natural spectacle that is the mangrove tree.

This tree grows in water, independent of soil or earthly anchorage of any kind, drifting at the mercy of the wavering tides.

In short; mangroves don’t give a damn. Or rather, it wouldn’t matter if they did.

These arboreal anomalies seem destined for comparison; self-sufficiency, independence, innovation. I’ve included them in a category of plants and animals not yet scientifically recognized, that I like to call “Low-Hanging Fruit”. These particular items lend themselves almost too easily to writerly use. Silly strawberries with their exposed seeds, failing to serve the sole purpose of fruit, are the pictures of endearing impotence. Coconuts, often suspended in tempting clusters far above some poor, stranded bastard, can either represent the vital sustenance our protagonist needs, or his bluntly ironic death.

Don't even get me STARTED on the rose! The cheaply romantic hues, the dramatically layered petals that are at their most effective when clutched by a rain-soaked and deeply apologetic lad.

But that’s not all! Beneath each aggressively aromatic flower lies a stem lined with sharp thorns! If that’s not enough tragic poetry to make you consider gardenias instead…

I implore you young and daring writers to find worldly meaning in the humbler veggies. Cabbage, turnips, boysenberries. Much like the mangrove, I don't care, do your thing. The danger in this, of course, is that you may realize that simply abandoning writing altogether would eradicate stupid crap -like dodging hacky vegetation metaphors -from your life. But that’s a very different issue for a very different piece.

In short; be a mangrove, a strawberry, even an exhausting rose. Be a seeker of floral meanings, but at your discretion, never simply because a branch bends so easily under their ripened heft and into your outstretched palm. Your life, as you see it, is remarkable, but can never be conveyed as such if your words aren’t.