Offerings

1/17/20

Thoughts of silvopasture upon awakening

Bamboo fences and parking lots in the East

The gift of mentors that believe in truth

The gift of those willing to talk to you

Your own faults at pretending, at needing to seem

As though you know what you don’t always know

Pretty sure that silvopasture is where cows and chickens

Are separated, where the cows eat the grasses

Then the chickens come in and nibble on what lives

In the patties of the cows, dropped, and this may be

You are nearly one hundred percent on this

So why not ask the question to make sure?

This might bring out the face that you do not know everything

This realization is positive and necessary

As much as the sprinkle comes this breezy morning

As much as the love comes upon your shoulder

As much as names that should be known by now

Names of the family of a man that you admire.

The two of you praise a man whose name is also unknown

Who one hundred and fifty years ago planted live oak

Trees along each side of Dorgenois and this

Is what you have to offer the 9th ward, the future

The gifts of chinquapins and pineapple guavas

That you may never eat, but which will rise and spread

And in order to keep the giving and sharing,

A list must be made, yet some of the responses:

A worry about getting sued if a child climbs the fence

Falls and breaks a limb trying to pick a satsuma

Fruit bringing rats and possums and other vermin

People coming onto the property and stealing.

What of the desperation that brought thoughts as this?

What of how trust has been erased in the name of suspicion?

What of butterflies on every fence and sidewalks where

Birds land and flutter and pass and land again

If only to show that there is life, if only

To help you realize the moment of your own

And without this, concrete will pave over the entire surface

Like a cast on an arm, the earth withers beneath

Grows weaker until a cast covers the entire body

Without trees the earth cannot breathe

Without worms the earth cannot digest and yet

So much moves toward taking away the very needs.

What of Maslow’s hierarchy when it comes to the blue and green

When the islands of plastic float on the seas

And children receive lunch on styrofoam trays

That they then eat with plastic forks

All of this thrown into black plastic bags

And the children are told to throw it away

As if there is an away, as if by there doing this

The trash somehow magically disappears

And we don’t think of these early lessons, of the ways

In what we do teaches them to do what they do

And there are theories, mostly your own

About why trash and wrappers and needles and cans

Pile up on France and Villere, thrown down by those who gather

As if doing so is taking power in a world of powerlessness

And when you talk to white people about systemic oppression

One man says, yeah but, and wants to discuss women

Taking from the system, making children that have no disabilities

Disabled so that they can get government funds.

He might as well revert to Reagan and his notion of welfare queens

Or he could do research on the far reaching effects of slavery and red lining

And the ways that these practices are so ingrained that white society

Does not even question the systems through which we benefit

So if an entire race has been cut and chopped at every turn

Would not this money be a sort of reparation?

And would not there be some truth in the notion

That any child born is in a sense disabled

Taken two steps back in the beginning and working twice as hard?

What we see and know was created by those that did not question

And what will heal what has happened will take centuries

And it won’t make sense when it is first proposed

And we might not even know that it is happening

While all of this is figured out, you will still reach out

Still try to share plants with those closest to you

Document the qualitative effects which is what the man

You admire said is most difficult to do, yet most necessary...

After meditation:

Spread what first comes easily:

Elderberry, mulberry, passionflower vines, butterfly

Ginger, sweet potatoes, elephant ears, taro root, turk’s cap,

Angel trumpet, figs, lab lab beans, betel leaf, cassia pendula, and then

Move into what needs to be acquired by seed: pineapple guava,

Papaya, moringa, and as these are thought of, consider

What needs to be explained, how to cut and coppice

How to use trees to feed other trees, which species should be together

How to interplant southern apples, persimmons, satsumas,

And play with the seeds of what will survive down to the twenties

Create a list of what can be given like dwarf tamarillo and muscadine

Holy basil and shiso and kkae nip seeds, arugula that will spread

Let people know that some are for feeding the soil and creating seed

Create a list of how to do this, let that be the curriculum

Let the world be the map upon which decisions are considered

Let the sacred ground stay blessed and healed by the hands of those

That have been a part of its sickness. Let this power be known by the children

Explain how these plants are using you by encouraging

The gathering of allies, how they are determined to spread their seed

Ask each farm for a list of five plants that multiply, that they can

Readily share at any time, like curry leaf and swamp milkweed, let what takes over

Grow in pots, consider how to heal soil, perhaps bidens alba

In black pots that can then pull up the heavy metals, yet then

Where do these go? Enlist the services of those studying at Tulane

Ask everybody you know, for there has to be a way of decomposing

And destabalizing the metals once a plant that actively held them has died

Is not this the way the earth heals itself? Surely there are mushrooms

A bin where all of this decomposed bidens might turn into soil

And be healed by fruiting bodies and mycelium, take the trash that

Might otherwise go the the landfill, compost what can be composted

Put plants into bottles and cans, take what is left and use this

To create art, to create vision, to ask questions, for in all of this

Is a gift, and how many times each day is this word uttered?

When living in the world of the spirit: constantly, for there

Is so much to be offered; find spots for bare root trees between now

And ordering time, walk up and down Lesseps with new flyers that read:

Would you like to see more life? Birds and Butterflies above the sidewalk. Would you like to stop and pick fruit fresh from a tree? Would you like to walk by and inhale

The scents of flowers meant to intoxicate? If so, think what you might want planted

Think of how you might share once your plants become bigger

For there is something for every fence, and a tree for every yard

These are gifts that should not cost money

Nature is not for sale, at least not through CRISP

There is the desire to plant what will heal the earth and feed us

And at the same time give us the strength to believe

There is a long way to go to repair the damages done in the past

This is only a small beginning, a chink in the armor, a sign

That there is a corner, and what could go wrong with sharing, with loving

The earth that supports your body, that does not question

That holds you beneath heaven until the time comes

Where your bones will feed this very same soil

And if you are lucky, roots will grow from this calcium

Mycelium will surround as the soul floats in a vacuum

Of infinite wisdom, grateful for the connection made

While in your body

Let this soul move you to consider a mirliton vine

And the way that things used to be, consider what you have never eaten

Molokhia. Consider taking a mimosa tree to fix nitrogen, consider trying

A starfruit tree near concrete or stone, on a southwest facing wall

Where experiments will be captured and seeds can be saved

Consider sharing this Thai red roselle and luffas

Not only for cleaning yourself, but to eat when young

And consider the leaves that we have never eaten

Consider opening your mind to a space and time

Where all is connected and race and nature and words that separate

No longer exist in the realm of connection that

Starts with a seed and ends with death becoming life

For this is no Frankenstein, this is only

The nature, the cyclical claim of what has always happened

Yet what we have turned so far from