In the early morning, a gardener moves through wet rows of vegetables, kneeling again and again to pull weeds. The scene is quiet and still: dew soaks her trousers, clouds hesitate, the morning star fades into daylight, and even the poppies and daisies have not opened. Her attention is practical but also morally charged. She looks under potato vines, chard, kale, spinach, and beets for hidden intruders—thistles, geraniums, nipplewort, seedling blackberries, ash, oak. Above all she hunts bindweed, which climbs and smothers what she wants to eat. She admits her bias: bindweed is not food; raspberries are. So her hands make daily decisions about what will be allowed to grow. The title frames this ordinary weeding as an election, and the mood is meditative and faintly wry—an intimate, almost political act of choosing life and death in a garden.
Election — Summary
She drags her rusty kneeler as way opens amid plants knee high, wetting her blue trousers in dew, as clouds decide to open or not, as the morning star recedes and hides itself, with a sliver of new moon, in day. Poppies have not yet awakened, nor daisies.
She kneels and kneels again, eyeing potato vines, chard, kale, spinach, beets to see are they hiding pretenders beneath their skirts: thistle, geranium, nipplewort, even nascent blackberries, ash trees, an oak.
Most of all, she seeks out bindweed, a long vine snaking from place to place, climbing, smothering fruitful things. She knows she's prejudiced, but her rationale is: bindweed's not for eating; raspberries are. Her hands elect who dies, who lives today.