Revolution Trees

Mango season is passed and the last poinciana flower has fallen from the tree. The canopy is green-green in the crab grass garden in August, the time of First Harvest is already behind, so quick, this summer has been. We ate all the mangoes and put the seeds in pots, just put them on the top of the dirt and now there are six or eight seedling mango trees sprouting, a tiny mango orchard in a white plastic pot in the fireplace outside. I mean to plant them all, though I might give some away, I'm thinking I must gift The Hub Garden Project with one of our baby mango trees. Last year i planted many Avocado and Mango seeds, a single avocado grew, I think it was the only seed that I didn't plant too deeply. This year, more have grown. I feel like I'm doing something clandestine and revolutionary when I plant a tree in this town. There is something revolutionary about growing a forest in this place where entire islands are razed for tourist amusement parks and gated communities, where so-called developers do not hesitate to bulldoze hundreds of acres of the last of the ancient woodland of New Providence and do not have to ask my consent, in this neighbourhood where people cu† down a one hundred year old blooming poinciana because flowers are falling on their car, and others who spend all the summer trying to sweep up the flowers... Yes there is something daring and anti-establishment about continuing to plant and grow trees in my little yard on this over-developed little island, these trees are my best protest poems, they are my green and living acts of resistance against five hundred years of patriarchal occupation, against forces that put women and the female Earth at constant risk for rape, exploitation, eradication... Alright, I know these are only a couple of mango seedlings, and I know there are real revolutionary women out there, in Honduras, in Afghanistan, in Congo, who are fighting for their lives every day. I do what I can do, with what I have, in the place where I find myself to be, and plant the mango seedlings in their name, in solidarity, in hope.