A time for regrowth

Despite the sunny skies and warmer temperatures, I'd been feeling glum and gloomy. There's still a patch of ice and snow near the front walk. I hadn't noticed many signs of real greening. The small, ephemeral pond behind the house refroze overnight. I've yet to hear any wood frogs or spring peepers. Other years by this time we've had day lilies emerging.

day lilies emerging: March 24, 2012

Photo by J. Harrington

After looking at the picture above, I took my grumbly self outside to double check if I'd missed something. Turns out I had. In the front flower garden, underneath the leaf mulch [sounds better than if I'd not gotten around to cleanup last Autumn, doesn't it?] the Better Half point out new, green growth. Across the front walk, there's what looks like strawberry plant(?) leaves, newly green, bringing signs of new life and hope. As the numbers of those stricken by COVID19 continue to surge, as the death count increases frighteningly, I feel a greater need to see signs of the continuity of life. I understand that your mileage may vary.

As I catch the daily news reports, I find myself sometimes thinking back to President Kennedy's inauguration and his inspirational challenge to us “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” I find that far different in form and substance than anything I've heard in the past three plus years. I'll take a chance on being guilty of waxing nostalgic, but it seems to me that another passage from Kennedy's inaugural speech could well fit the circumstances faced today by all of us, especially the kind of voters who elected Kennedy. Please consider, as we move closer and closer to November, which candidate you can envision offering something like the following:

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

I can see Bernie, and, maybe, Joe, but definitely not Donnie, defending and restoring our sadly eroded human rights. The time is past for us to return to growing a heritage of which we can be proud. We won't get there with a "Me first" philosophy that really means "Only Me."

Remember

Joy Harjo - 1951-

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star's stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother's, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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