Farmers Market at the Autumn Equinox<\/p>\n
wanting to nest
\nin the yellow-leafed wind,
\ninside this basket
\nheaped with late saucers
\nof summer squash,
\nbunched arugula,
\nlipstick and gypsy peppers,<\/p>\n
we know the news of the day,
\nwars against children,
\ntax cuts for the rich,
\nenvironmental assault,
\nit doesn\u2019t stop,<\/p>\n
but this morning
\nif I must think of what\u2019s gone bad,
\nlet it be a bruised eggplant,
\nan apple with a worm,
\nlet me hear the tambourine
\nof the moon
\nas it lights the way for the corn
\nto rise up,<\/p>\n
among this bounty
\nthe memory of my grandfather
\ntravels in me
\nas if from the thin roots
\nof carrots, to the leafy tops,
\nand I am with him in his garden
\nas he listens to the small song
\nof a seed before planting it,<\/p>\n
kneeling to earth
\nhe asks the seed, how it wants to flower.
\nTonight, I will dream of him,
\ndream he has cupped his hands
\naround mine, and between us we hold
\na luminous sliver of prayer
\nfor what the world could still become.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Merna Ann Hecht,<\/a> storyteller, poet, and essayist teaches creative writing and humanities at the University of Washington Tacoma. For the past nine years she was a teaching artist with the Seattle WITS program. <\/a>Merna also directs a poetry project with immigrant and refugee youth. She has been a teaching artist in hospitals, detention facilities for homeless and adjudicated youth and at BRIDGES: A Center for Grieving Children in Tacoma. Merna received a 2008 Jack Straw Writers award, <\/a>a National Storytelling Community Service Award and a National Storytelling Network Brimstone Award for Applied Storytelling. Her essays and poems have appeared in Kaleidoscope<\/em>, Out of Line<\/em>, The National Storytelling Journal<\/em>, The Storyteller\u2019s Classroom;<\/em> Chosen Tales: One Generation Tells Another; <\/em>the Teachers & Writers Collaborative Magazine;<\/em>Drash: Northwest Mosaic <\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/em>and other books and journals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Farmers Market at the Autumn Equinox wanting to nest in the yellow-leafed wind, inside this basket heaped with late saucers of summer squash, bunched arugula, lipstick and gypsy peppers, we know the news of the day, wars against children, tax … Continue reading