The bulldozers and jackhammers blasted the concrete away clearing it of water, aggregate, cement, tearing it down to the soil until it buzzed with reclamation, smelled of loam and petrichor, the release of geosmin in the stirring, ozone expelling with first lightning and rain, surface bubbles releasing aerosols like fresh baked bread from the oven through open kitchen windows.
Over the watchful hum of drones circling overheard the first crop of the community garden was tilled and planted in nine wide rows- beans, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkin, squash, melons, clover, mint and basil- drawing only the attention of hornets, the disinterest of the rain god that let their tender love dissolve back to the earth in a pool of rot, that never allowed a harvesting or tasting.
The second crops were planted in five narrow rows: tomatoes, peanuts, green peppers, sweet peas and eggplants, offensive to wasps and immune to the silly whims of an offended deity that could not flood over their high walls, their collective pride, red as clotted blood. They reaped its first beautiful harvest, thought it tasted of airy summer dreams, sold it with joy in their farmerβs market until the first secret taste spit it out for it was nothing but sawdust and glue.