In the Country of Tomorrow

I have been thinking about seeds,
how small they are,
how easily the world could mistake them
for nothing.

But inside their hard little bodies
there is a forest
waiting to grow.

They rest in the open palm—
breakable,
full of beginnings.

And the earth receives them.

Two hundred and fifty years ago,
a promise was set down
like a seed in the soil—
life, liberty, happiness.
A hope determined to grow
wide enough for us all.

It was not yet the harvest,
nor the tree in full leaf—
only a beginning,
one that would need tending.

This is what I want to learn
before the long day ends:
to trust what begins in silence,
to honor what grows in the dark,
to believe that tomorrow
is not a country we wait for,
but one we build
with the mercy of our hands.

I want to love the neighbor
whose name I know,
and the stranger
whose story is yet to be known.

I want to make of my life
not a fence,
not a locked door,
not a border drawn in fear,
but a gate swinging open
in storm and sunlight alike.

There is beauty here—
do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

There is beauty
in the many-colored world,
in the many-tongued morning,
in the field bright with difference,
where each wild thing
belongs to itself
and still belongs together.

But beauty does not excuse us
from truth.

There are those left by the edge of the road
beneath the hard noon,
under the weight
of what others would not help carry.

A seed abandoned in the dust
along the roadside
while cautious passersby
cling to the middle path
and name it prudence.

I do not want to be respectable
in that way.

I do not want clean hands
if cleanliness means distance.
I do not want peace
if peace means silence
while the wounded are told
to wait their turn.

Let my hands be useful.
Let my heart stay awake.
Let my knees know the ground
where service is needed,
and let my spine remember its strength
where courage is required.

For the country of tomorrow
will not be inherited
by fear.
It will not be planted
by hatred.
It will not bloom
from the soil of indifference.

I may never see
what becomes of this.

The trees I plant
may shade another generation.
The flowers may open
after my footsteps have vanished
from the path.
The harvest may be gathered
by hands that never knew mine.

But what of that?

The world has always been made
by hidden things:
roots in the dark earth,
the quiet labor
of what does not seek praise.

So I will keep planting—
mercy in the torn field,
welcome beside the road,
hope where the soil lies
seemingly barren.

And perhaps someday,
in some unexpected place,
something green will rise.

And someone,
without knowing my name,
will stop,
look upon the sprouting green,
and say:

See there—
the world is not finished.
God is not done.
The earth is still learning
how to grow
for us all.