One Stone - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

One Stone

One stone gently tossed
into a stream is lost.
Many, heaved with force,
can make a stream change course.
One voice barely heard -
wind swallows every word.
But when voices blend,
the silent air we rend.

I think I'm alone -
one solitary stone.
One small, timid voice
with no cause to rejoice.
But I am so wrong -
full choirs sing my song!
And a stream is stopped
when many stones are dropped.

by Sharon Flood Kasenberg, February 19, 2018

I wrote this poem in February for a friend who was planning to stage a protest. I couldn't physically be with him to support a cause we both believe in, but I could send him a poem. He read it to some who had gathered with him, and so, although not present myself, I played a small part in his efforts.

Now - while that same friend stages a hunger strike - I've been waging a war on the weeds in downtown Atwood.

My husband has been meeting a lot of people since he decided to run for municipal office. One of the people he met noted that Todd was married to "an activist", mentioning my "Weeding Wednesdays".

At this point I need to mention that in spite of this post containing a poem about stones and discussing weeds, it isn't a commentary on the legalization of the other kind of weed. (Frankly, that isn't my thing at all. My imagination needs no assistance, and I get the munchies far too often already!)

My frustration with the weeds along my town's main drag started as soon as we'd moved here. As I recall, I'd spent a morning pulling gargantuan thistles out of my lawn and garden beds, and decided to take a break by running to the post office to see if our mail had caught up with us yet. And on my short walk, I noted towering weeds on Main St - a.k.a the highway that runs straight through town - and I thought, "Why doesn't somebody pull these weeds?"

When we'd lived here for almost a year, our town did its big Canada 150 celebration. The worst of the weeds got whacked - but they grew back taller than ever. This year, the Canada Day parade went past a few mighty impressive specimens, and on the way to view said parade with a friend, I said, "I swear one day I'm going to come out here and dig up these weeds!"

And so I did. I'd been itching to pull those weeds for almost two years, but I'd been afraid to. Then my husband decided to run for mayor, and I figured that if he was brave enough to run for office - in spite of critics and naysayers - then I could be brave enough to not care if people thought I looked like a nutter pulling weeds along the main drag!

I put out a call for helpers on Facebook, and a few ladies got out to help me pull weeds. Nobody laughed at us - in fact, a whole lot of people complimented us for taking the time to do something for the town. The next week was more of the same. The third week my previous helpers were all tied up helping elsewhere, and so I went out and finished the first (and worst) block on my own. I could've allowed myself to feel really discouraged, but I didn't. "Weeding Wednesday" never took off to the extent that I'd hoped; I'd envisioned a team of volunteers working efficiently for an hour and then maybe doing lunch at the diner...and instead had two helpers both times, and worked three hours... However, a few really encouraging things had happened along the way:

1) People were encouraging and appreciative. They thanked us for our efforts. One woman came and brought us cold water bottles.
2) The town heard what we were up to and came out with a weed whacker to cut down the worst of the weeds. A few of the property owners got out and sprayed their weeds. We had initiated a movement of sorts!
3) I learned that I really would rather be pulling the weeds than walking by them and complaining about them. I have time to pull them, and it feels good to be actively doing something to beautify a wonderful community that could use a little spiffing up.

Am I an "activist"? That's a tough question. According to the dictionary, an activist is "a person who campaigns to bring about political or social change." I didn't really campaign, and I've yet to see if any change - political or social - has occurred as a result of my efforts. All I know is that (weather permitting) I'll be the somebody who continues to pull weeds downtown on Wednesday mornings, and I'll keep holding out hope that a few others will join me in the effort. It isn't much, but it's a contribution I can make.

Consider rocks and streams for a moment. When my boys were young, they loved nothing more than tossing rocks into bodies of water. They might have loved that satisfying thunk, or maybe it was a simple way of asserting power over the world around them - "You - rock - shall now dwell in this pond!" When they got older, they tried to skip stones in the lake when we visited the family cottage. (Grandma had to coach them - I can't skip stones to save my soul.) But like my sons, I like the sound of a stone hitting the water. I like seeing the ripples one stone makes as it sinks into the depths.

When I was young, there was a stream at the edge of the lot that our cabin sat on. That stream was the bane of my father's existence - and every spring he hauled stones to divert its course so that it wouldn't erode our much coveted stretch of sandy beach. As a result, the stream was a minor inconvenience to us. If it was too wide to step over, we'd merely plunk in a few strategically placed large stones and cross without getting our feet wet.

My husband is dropping the big rocks to ford a stream. My friend (the protester) is hauling stones to divert a stream. I'm not situated to do either of those things - and activist seems like too much of a stretch to describe what I'm attempting.

For now, I'll settle for making ripples.