Far Better than Innocence and Hope

 

My angel-wing begonia clings to one leaf in her insistence on life.  I left her in an icy car too long, and now tend her soil and give water as needed to assist her effort.  I am guilty.  But if I were innocent, I’d help her anyway.  This seems better than hope—to collaborate despite the odds, despite who is at fault. Waiting to discover culprits is complicity in the harm.  Action is better than innocence.  This is clear in cases of begonias and fire, but who will help analyze social systems of destruction?  Who will find alternatives and spark change?  Who will stop the harm? Like my begonia, planet earth and its societies have few leaves left, but we have something better than innocence and hope: action.

People in action persist in nurturing what could be, they research, they invent, and they dream new spirit into existence.  They reject fascism, and they consult all people, young and old.  Climate change and bombs create rubble and death, but we survivors rebuild.  Together we change course as knowledge grows.  Acting with awareness is better than innocence.  It’s better than hope.  All hands, feet, hearts and souls join reason and spirit to push us toward solutions.  And when hope seems gone, we act for those not yet born.

 

May this New Year wake
us to act as seeds ready
to grow new gardens.

 For Sumana's Happy New Year! at What's Going On?

(a work in progress)

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© 2023 Susan L. Chast