bakers...

"your poetry does not belong to you.
they belong to those who need them"

and so sisters and brothers
let us craft
with clean hands and choice ingredients
the bread of poetry we bake.

You do not know the farmer in the field,
Dirty toes and fingernails, skin
The color of brown earth baked by the sun,
The beast of burden who bore
the onslaught of the season
to give us clean white rice.

Silkworms do not feed on silk,
But the mulberry tree, jaws chomping leaves
So it may spin us softness. The bees do not only
Gather nectar, but incessant wings visit
Flower after flower so they may pollinate.

Each of us should be humble
as the farmer, voracious as the worm,
Generous as the bee.
Our fingers should set off
towards the highest and ripest fruits,
The sweetest,
Wash them with clean water
So that others may partake
and be filled.

We are farmers ourselves,
The world may not notice us, may believe
They need
Us not, but they feed on our harvest.

We may be damned, who
"worship a savage god who destroys them
without making them mad first"
but our hands reveal what is lost
among the heaps of metals, plastics and foam,
damned,
but our roots are deep in the earth, feeding,
as we ourselves feed on humble hands,
voracious jaws,
incessant wings.

Sisters and brothers, I call on you,
Let us with clean hands and clear eyes
Bake the bread of our poetry.