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PLANTING SEEDS by Caroline Mellor


This poem was written during the first weeks of the coronavirus 'lockdown'. There is a lot of fear and isolation around at the moment. But it also feels like a powerful, potent time to imagine a better future: to plant the seeds. Wishing you wild hope wherever you are.  

“If a world is dreamable, 
maybe it can be dreamed into being.” 
~Ursula K. Le Guin~


Planting Seeds

It is the seed moon, 
the time of sowing.
The roads and skies
have grown quiet.
Sometimes in the stillness
I can feel the earth dreaming.

There are many things I can't do 
in these strange times.
But I can plant seeds.
I hold them like prayers
in the palm of my hand,
I notice their shape and size,
the way they catch the light.
Their impossible promise.
I teach my children 
to make wishes on them -
and I make wishes too.

I breathe my brightest, 
most golden dreams 
into these seeds,
dreams wild as sweet violets
on hidden forest floors.

Poppy, nasturtium, sunflower and sage:
bring nectar, food and medicine, 
praise the sun.
Corn, squash, tomato and bean:
seeds of hope
for the creatures
and the wild places
and all those yet to come.

May this great pause
be a seed itself
for the beautiful future
which wants and waits to be born.

I think anyone who says 
that miracles aren't possible
must not have planted seeds.

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