Note: The final verse is taken from a statement by the More Gardens! Coalition
It started with one woman.
She walked through the empty lot
stooping down to pick up
broken beer bottles and crushed cans.
She dug through the rubble
to find fertile soil.
She planted a handful of seeds
and El Jardin de la Esperanza
took root.
For twenty-two years the garden grew.
Somewhere between the brick walls and grey concrete
Esperanza found a place
for green leaves, purple petals,
winding paths through blooming flowers,
and a casita where people could come together
for baptisms, songs, ceremonies,
or quiet time on a noisy street.
For twenty-two years it grew
until the men came.
They didn’t come to smell the flowers
or walk down the winding path
or sit in the casita.
They came for a different shade of green
if you know what I mean.
The people saw them coming a mile away
and they knew what to do.
They summoned the legendary coqui,
erecting a frog ten feet high
with glass eyes for them to see through
and a solid frame to lock down to
so that the bulldozers would be paralyzed.
The men with silver badges broke into buildings
flew overhead in a steel mosquito
charged at the garden
and gouged out the coqui’s eyes
with their sharp steel tools.
The gardeners clung to the blinded frog
as jackhammers dug into its brain
to fish them out.
The people chanted, sang, cried, prayed,
but the men and their metal monsters
struck the coqui down with their rusty claws
and lashed out at the earth
until Esperanza’s bleeding body was broken.
The bulldozer has plowed the fertile soils of Esperanza
and scattered the seeds of hope across the city.
The seeds of hope have joined the great winds
for a dance across the world.