Love is rare herb that makes
a even a sworn enemy and this
grows out of non-violence
During the last year I have come across a number of articles, pictures, quotes and poems about the spirituality of gardening. I have been thinking about putting them together in web posting on the www.nonviolentcow.org site.
Today I received a poem from a friend, Peggy Rozga, from the sixties. She was a major player in the civil rights movement of the sixties when I was a very minor player. She moved on in life and became an English professor, now retired. When I saw her at an event last winter she told me about her writings or prose and poetry around herbs. I sent her a copy of a picture quote by Mahatma Gandhi about Love as a real Herb. When we saw each other last Sunday in Church she told me she had written a poem about this quote. Today it came and I share it with you.
“Love is a rare herb…” by Margaret Roza
—Mahatma Gandhi
Here is the garden.
Here is the seed.
Center Street to Clarke
between 9th and 12th
Milwaukee, hallowed ground
where St. Boniface used to stand
where
civil rights protestors
were arrested when they stepped
into the street, tear gassed
when they retreated.
Here is the garden.
Here are the seedlings.
North Division High School
where music, where theater, fell
to budget cuts, tone deaf politicians
like cold-hearted overseers focused only
on their own plantation.
Here is the garden.
Here the plants.
Here from bitter ground
hardened soil, scarce sun,
master gardeners grow,
find seed money, nurture
dance, dancers. Choreographers.
Drum, violin, saxophone, song. Singers.
History, prose, poem, film.
Artists. Stories to give life, to keep
open the way
for scientists, doctors, accountants,
organizers, stateswomen and men.
Here is the garden.
Here the herbs
and, the rarest, the greatest of these,
Love,
sets the stage,
sets the banquet table.
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