From a distance the heads of elderberries look like egrets
floating on the prison pond where cattle come to drink,
or did
before the Riverkeeper visited once,
twice,
in this dammed blackwater,
into which 10,000 acres of prison-farm drain:
acres that feed prisoners across the state,
charged with glyphosate aka Roundup,
which the World Health Organization now calls a “probable carcinogen”
which we know can last 40 years in the soil
and which we have also come to understand is associated
with Parkinson’s
with Alzheimers
with autism
all of the autoimmune diseases in whose traces we take to our beds.
And these acres no different
than our fathers’ farms
than our neighbors’ farms
than the 10,000-acre Roundup-Ready corn & cotton & soybean & canola
farms growing more toxic by the day.
But on a farmstead down the road
where a sign says PLEASE NO SPRAYING
where the kids are calling themselves farmers
without the combines
without the subsidies – the terrible erosion – the chemicals—
where bees are buzzing
where buckeyes bloom in March when the hummingbirds have always returned
to south Georgia although no one can count on that now.
Everything changing,
Before our eyes changing.
where cows rotate through the green pastures,
where goats browse upward in the brush, the sheep graze.
I in my garden and Joe in his garden and Charlotte in her garden,
Julia, Jamila, Rashid, Relinda in their gardens,
Joel in his fields and Wendell in his pastures,
Vandana in her seed bank.
All reaping a different harvest.
Planting cowpeas – Red Hull Javie, Collossus, Hercules, Blue Goose, Running Conch,
Lady, Zipper Cream, Pinkeye Purplehull…
Planting Candyroaster squash, Greenpeace kale, Mortgage Lifter tomato, Gold-striped
cushaw, Green Glaze collards, Malabar spinach.
They are not planting their grandfather’s corn,
his wholly place-adapted, vintage, heirloom, Mom & Pop corn.
That’s gone.
But Stanley corn, Keener corn, Bloody Butcher corn.
Grounded again.
Picking the elder flowers that taste so good in pancakes and later the berries themselves,
for syrup, for wine.
Picking the ramps, the wild onion, sassafras, chickweed, lamb’s-quarters, walnut.
With the books open,
eyes wide open,
hearts open, yes?
Speaking a new language:
mizuna…Flemish Giant…fermentation…vermiculture…open-
pollinated…raw…organic…organic…local organic.
They ask the old guy who visits if he’s ever had cracklins.
No, he says, but I know they’re cooked in lard.
Has he ever tasted collard kraut? Clabber? Moon & Stars?
No, he says.
Food has been going extinct.
Food has been destroying us.
It has become nutritionally impotent.
It has been harming the earth.
It has been annihilating pollinators.
: We have allowed industry to feed us.
But green is the new black,
the backyard the hottest vacation spot.
The holes in the atmosphere & those in our brains can heal.
Also the holes in our hearts.
People who shop at farmers markets are happier, happiest.
The farmer—your neighbor, your friend.
Everything changing.
Before our eyes changing.
We’re building soil now,
finally building soil:
local soil.
Local energy, local power, local culture, local means.
Building community—look at us, all of us—
taking the power back—
the political power
the power of place
the power of the sun
the nutritional power
the power of people to feed themselves
the power of deliciousness
the power of beauty…
Reclaiming
hope
vanishing genetics
old wisdom and the new
the artistry of farming and the nourishment of art
You ask will organics feed the world?
Will organics heal the world?
And I say,
again,
as always,
Nothing. Else. Will.
I say, Rev up your awesome.
You. Find a place to push.
Pick up a tool, a hoe or a shovel.
Start turning the compost bin,
to make the soil in which
the seed will grow.
Make art.
Live art.
Farm art.
Go home.
Come home.
Savor.
We are winging into the Ecozoic
Everything changing
Before our eyes changing.
Welcome to the new world.
