Lessons from a Horticulturist

This poem was printed in Peace in Action in 1986. The publication was a project of a Foreign Service Officer much like my dad who had passed away the year before. I read it at a UNC Poets for Peace event in 2001.

Lessons from a Horticulturist

It was on the road to Damascus

we were delayed

for land mines. The British,

handsome silhouettes in the dark,

searched painstakingly

while we waited in the car.

My father spoke cheerfully

(why wasn't he terrified?)

and my brother affirmed calmly,

“Yes, Solomon surely came past

that very spot.”

We waited three hours,

chatting, singing--

“On top of old Smokey

all covered with dew...”

and saw the Morning Star rise.

“Venus,” my father announced

proudly as if he'd ordered,

Par Avion, the scene

from the tattered pages of our

Montgomery Ward catalog.

We waited three hours without

anyone asking to turn back

And, of course, I knew better

than to cry.

Crying was for the very small

and I was already six,

well-acquainted with warring

(global, local—the neighbor's

shriek as he threw plates

against the sandstone wall--

the alluring weapons in the bazaar:

holstered swords, pearly dueling

guns and substantial

Scottish dirks; all the means

to glory in magical display).

Whenever I hear of despair

or helplessness or

“What can one person do?”

I think of one man.

I think of one man, unfamous

and without power

who, undiverted by the

threat of, for us, annihilation

taught his children to look

at the night sky,

to remember the greatnesses

which Man has made,

to always go on--

no matter what--

travelinng light but

never forgetting to pack our little seeds

(Ever-Sprouters,

Catch-Hold-Anywhere)

such little seeds!

--of peace.

~~~~~~~~~~~