A Blooming Hope
Rosemead, CA
2022, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
I crow and cry,
summer winds below my wings.
I flap to a neighborhood,
and see a variety of things.
Flocks of small children,
pots in their hands.
walking to a park,
picking up shovels from the land.
They dig through the earth,
planting shrubs as they go,
watering, weeding,
trying to help them grow.
Down go some saplings,
into the rich brown dirt,
my flock and I fly closer,
but cautious to not get hurt.
They laugh and joke,
as they add life to the empty place
the littered plastic trash
gone without a trace.
They go around the blocks
planting more and more.
making the park more beautiful
than it was before
They start adding different plants,
veggies, vines, and shrubs,
a rainbow of blossoms
a lively nature hub.
They work like busy bees
all through the summer day
but talk and plan
and even sometimes play.
They all seem so excited
Ready for new change.
thinking of more sanctuaries
expanding and growing their range
The sun eventually fades
casting bright hues across this team
bright smiles on their faces
Oh what a dream.
The equipment is put away
and cheers fill the night
These kids aren’t going to stop
Until they make this planet right.
We hover around
watching them from above,
flying over the park
our hearts filled with love.
I can’t believe the sight
A growing little utopia
with such diverse life
oaks, lilies, camelias.
It’s been forever,
since I have seen such a thing
I flap and I cry
Through the air my caws ring.
I can’t help but feel something,
a bright and blooming hope.
All I can wish,
that they show more kids the ropes.
I can see the future,
a green happy earth.
It is from these kids,
a new world will birth.
Reflection
What inspired my work were my father's garden and my 6th-grade school garden. When I had free time I would go out into these gardens and see animals like squirrels, birds, and butterflies resting in the beautiful green havens that the people I cared about worked so hard to create. Especially with birds, many came to call our gardens their homes. I am not a humorous person and wished instead to touch on the positivity that gardens can bring. Although not directly in the poem, greenery and trees help a lot with climate change as they take in greenhouse gases. I figured that a bird would not know it, rather knowing that a garden would be one of the best places to live, with its cleaner air and shade from the harsh sun. The more I worked on this project, the more I started to think about how we can take up simple things like gardening and make the world better for different walks of life.