WHILE THE PRESIDENT BOMBS IRAN

a poem & an encouragement for planting seeds in times such as these.

My Strawberry plants are finally blooming.

WHILE THE PRESIDENT BOMBS IRAN 

in my garden 
I sow peace
alongside my tomatoes. 
shaking the flowers gently to pollinate
the fruit that comes with tending.

at the market 
I sow joy
in every smile I give
to the elderly man who comes looking for kale each week.
his gaze shining when I’ve saved some just for him.
	
in the barn each week 
we sow broccoli sprouts—
& when I press them into the hands of the woman 
just diagnosed with cancer, I whisper words of hope 
	there is still time to turn the tide of this war. 

war.
War.
WAR.

the sacrilegious bottom line of 
	Take. Take. Take.
until there is nothing left has been
mis-marked as sacred growth & gain
for far too long & 
 
who is brave enough to tell the cancer cells that
they dig their own grave? 

who will tell the men dropping bombs—
if you really want to show your power, you ought to bend low & plant seeds
for “all flourishing is mutual”* & creating is harder than destroying.

& I am tired
but I cannot give up. 

I refuse. 

so, in my garden
while the president bombs Iran. 
I sow peace
          & joy
          & hope 

& then, before the light fades
I stand at the edge of my field, open palmed & 
I give it all away.

*“all flourishing is mutual” is a quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer in her fantastic book, Braiding Sweetgrass.

Dear Reader,

These are not the days we want to be living through, and writing poems and planting seeds can seem like such stupidly small acts in the face of such great evil. But here we are—in this moment—and we must keep living, and growing, and laughing, and loving, because that is the only way to create the world we long for.

I am so full of angst, and I’m not sure my back molars will survive the grinding I can’t seem to help doing in my sleep ever since November. But I have also been reminded this past week, by an interview clip with Congresswoman Sarah McBride, that hope is a choice. Cynicism may be in vogue, but it cannot create. The moment we are living in is rife with greed being glamorized as “good.” And I am exhausted by the sheer volume of evil being committed in the name of God—but human history is rife with stories of the empire wielding God as a weapon to justify eliminating those who have what we want. It is both comforting, and not comforting at all—this story is not new.

This greed, for power/money/status/etc is a cancer that can only ever end in mutual destruction. There is no happy ending for a cancer, even if it has “won”—there is only death. And I’ve known enough cancer patients to know that sometimes the most effective healing is a subversive one—one that slips past defenses, one that holds and tells the cancer cells “you don’t have to be this way—this is not the way to life.”

And so, my hope for you Dear Reader, is that this poem finds you holding on to hope by your fingernails. I know you feel like you are scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel—but you are not alone. Together we press on. Together, we can still work towards making the world a more beautiful place—one seed, one smile, one act of kindness at a time.

There is still time to turn the tide.

xoxo,

Gracie