Why the Gardens ...

This picture inspired the poem below. I was touring a rather innovative day care / day treatment program (Hogar Escuela -- Home School) that is the essential work the Episcopal Church in Costa Rica is doing, and a small garden was one of the projects that a youth group came to work on. One of the participants had said "Really, a garden? There´s nothing more crucial you need done?" The bishop, who was giving me the tour, told them that children who come to the school are at-risk children who tend to live in homes that have no earth or grass to which the children have access. The poem is born of a reflection of that conversation.

Why the Gardens ...

I asked her, “Why the gardens
In barrios such as these?”
She kind of smiled and said to me,
From down there on her knees …

“I know in a garden
There are places we can go,
And they change from day to day,
So we never know …

Where the night will find us,
Our companions on the way,
Or the wonderful words of wisdom
The Spirit may have to say.

Yes, it´s in a garden
We can know that God is real,
Where our hearts and minds can quiet
And our spirits best can heal.

Oh, it´s in a garden
Where life and death combine,
Where each of us can find within
A spark of the divine.

You asked me ´Why the gardens
In barrios such as these?´
Perhaps every life of burden
Needs a place of ease."

Humbled by her answer,
My soul deeply sighed.
With no more important work to do,
I joined her at her side.