words are like seeds
within are leaf and stem and root
words are like seeds
hold next year’s hope when the world bleeds
and when they’re trampled under boots
it plants them deep—they push up shoots—
words are like seeds
ink is like blood
words flow from pain onto the page
ink is like blood
in poetry, from pens—a flood
of words that light a way through rage
that cut the bars that form our cage
ink is like blood
we planted words
against the bitterness and cold
we planted words
with what was left we fed the birds
deep in our hearts, while seasons rolled
seeds full of hope split—to unfold
we planted words
Poem by Janet Ruth
Janet Ruth is a NM ornithologist. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. Her sonnet “Invisible Before Us Untouched and Still Possible” won a Laureates’ Choice Award in the 2022 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. She has recent poems in Oddball Magazine, Tulip Tree Review, The Ocotillo Review, Sin Fronteras, Ekphrastic Review, and anthologies including Where Flowers Bloom (The Red Penguin Collection, 2022), and Moving Images: poetry inspired by film (Before Your Quiet Eyes Publication, 2021). Her first book, Feathered Dreams: celebrating birds in poems, stories & images (Mercury HeartLink, 2018) was a Finalist for the 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards. https://redstartsandravens.com/janets-poetry/