Seed Declaration
Seeds are us for sure
The stories of seeds are the stories of us all: the hoeings and the weedings, the waterings and the gleanings, the dances of weather and plants
The forests of trees whose breath we breathe were all once seeds
And the way seeds feed us, giving our own goodness back, along with their own
Our seeds are us
Seeds invent us no less than language, sewing together the fabric of the worlds we wear
Seeds sing deep for us, an undertoning of all our human hearts
Seeds lend us ears to hear the winds of all those mutual journeys of seed to seed
And such eyes they are, opening us to the seedy worlds we share with birds and bees and butterflies
Aye, seeds swing us right round spring to spring, as we sow them, grow them, eat them and sow them again
Our lovers they are, entering our intimate places every day of our lives
Our mothers they are, nursing us on the milk of earth so we can get to heaven
And such love bestowed on seeds, our watchfulness and waiting, our pain and endurance, our hopes and happiness
Countless generations choosing them for sustenance and delight in food and drink, for building our habitations and feeding our animals, for lighting us with joy
The diversity of seeds our diversity, the cornucopia of foods and herbs and spices, our own immensity
Our quest together the same quest: magician hitchhikers popping into newness, rooting wherever it is possible to live
Aye, seeds seed us no less than they do themselves, spinning new people out of old as the harvests repeat and repeat
Seeds, our security and abundance, a quarter of a million seeds from one amaranth seed: a handful of seeds could feed the planet in only a few seasons
Seeds, our sign and our assurance that everything is possible in this best possible world
Seeds, our windows and our wings to future selves, to future, unimagineable extravaganzas of plants and people
Yet there are some who would take the boundless benefits and beauty of seeds and reduce them to one seed, their seed
Some who would own seeds and license their use, as they have already, who would say that all the farmers who have ever selected seed are as nothing in the scheme of things, their scheme of things
Some who would punish farmers for saving seed, as they have already done
Some who would violate the integrity of seeds by blasting other genetic blueprints into their very webwork
Some, indeed, who would kill seeds
These same would sing praises of progress, science and goodwill as they poison and eliminate seeds and people and earth
These same would infuse every morsel we put in our mouths with the frequency of fear
We must not let them do this, We must not let them do this
We must embrace seeds as never before
We must be there with seeds, for seeds; must witness their incredible seed-to-seed as we do our own seed-to-seed
Let us repeat their vital statistics the way we do for movie stars and sports heroes
Let us save seeds, trade seeds, let us cherish seeds as sacred messengers from our parents’ parents
Let us be at home with seeds on this earth we share as home,
Yes to their inherent expansiveness no less than to our own
No to their mad manipulation, their mindless murder by greedy, expedient power mongers
Let us declare their right to be as much as we declare our own right to be
In the name of love, We are seeds