Bill Jamieson from Baltimore read about Defiant Gardens in Emily Mayhew’s wonderful book  “ A Heavy Reckoning” It inspired this poem.

let my songs, my words, my pictures

be defiant gardens,

green plants grown to spite 

the dessert;

a reminder

of the possibilities 

of what can be achieved

with love, with compassion,

with humanity

in this wasteland I see around me

barren of empathy, foresight, compassion

Help me friends, to grow gardens

of defiance.

Plant your songs, yours words, your pictures, 

your dances, your everything!

Let us share our pain with each other, 

walk towards each other, and plant 

our resistance and make the soil

fertile with hope;

let us grow our defiant compassion

that it might flower, even in darkness. 

Bill Jamieson

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