the grass

God bless the grass that grows through the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows through.
And God bless the grass.

Next year we're going to put a surveillance camera on the roof pointing at the bamboo patch in the backyard. Jeff and I lie in bed at night and imagine we can hear it growing. We know it's a grass, and that you have to put a barrier around it that goes 30 inches down in order to keep it from poking holes in our deck or the neighbor's pool and we know the patch in our back yard sent out shoots that have grown up to 15 feet in less than a month, but beyond that, we dont know much about it. It spreads, even with the barrier. The speed and tenacity with which it grows is certainly one of those agricultural phenomena that a childhood in northern Minnesota could not prepare us for.

God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies over it and think that it is done.
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
And God bless the grass

I talked to Mom on the phone really briefly yesterday and I asked her more about Matt Lourey's burial and how Becky is holding up. She says Becky is getting lots of supportive notes and emails, and some critical ones too, saying she should be speaking out more strongly against the war. Becky doesn't crumble, though. She says that Matt had a job to do, and that job was to follow his commanding officer. The real question we should be asking, she says, is what the commanders are doing.



Jeff Brownell took the photo. Melvina Reynolds wrote the song.