California Native Flowers

In this spring of 1968 with the last

third of the Twentieth Century

travelling like a dream toward its

end, it is time to plant books,

to pass them into the ground, so that

flowers and vegetables may grow

from these pages.

Squash

The time is right to mix sentences

with dirt and the sun

with punctuation and the rain with

verbs, and for worms to pass

through question marks, and the

stars to shine down on budding

nouns, and the dew to form on

paragraphs.

Lettuce

The only hope we have is our

children and the seeds we give them

and the gardens we plant together.

Shasta Daisy

I pray that in thirty-two years

passing that flowers and vegetables

will water the Twenty-First Cen-

tury with their voices telling that

they were once a book turned by

loving hands into life.

Sweet Alyssum Royal Carpet

I’ve delighted to live in a world where

books are changed into thousands

of gardens with children playing

in the gardens and learning the gen-

tle ways of green growing things.

Calendula

My friends worry and they tell me

about it. They talk of the world

ending, of darkness and disaster.

I always listen gently, and then

say: No, it’s not going to end. This

is only the beginning, as this book

is only a beginning.

Carrots

I think the spring of 1968 is a good

time to look into our blood and

see where our hearts are flowing

as these flowers and vegetables

will look into their hearts every day

and see the sun reflecting like a

great mirror their desire to live

and be beautiful.

Parsley

I thank the energy, the gods and the

theater of history that brought

us here to this very moment with

this book in our hands, calling

like the future down a green and

starry hall.