mulching and the danger of reading newspapers

 I was having a conversation with a friend about the need to fast from the news at times as a spiritual exercise.  I had also just loaned her a book of poetry by women called Cries of Spirit.  She asked if I had a favorite and I said no, it depends on the moment.  She likes Margaret Atwood so we turned to the index and found this title, "It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers."  It fit our conversation perfectly.  The following week I used newspapers to mulch a weed patch near my  house where I hope to grow some black raspberries.  Here is the poem that got scribbled from the intersection of our conversation, Atwood's poem (copied at the end), and my meager attempt at being a gardener.

Mulching

Margaret Atwood wrote

And I agree

It is dangerous to read newspapers

So I gather the pages

To spread over

Broken down cardboard boxes

Where I hope

Next fall

To plant black raspberries

right outside my bedroom window

Like an addict

I say

I’ll just look at this  one

story of a beloved father killed by a fallen limb

story of a murder victim’s family hoping for no parole

picture of a mother found guilty for murder of her newborn infant son

                        her pregnancy a secret

                                    his murder now public

                                                she faces life behind bars

Have you seen this missing teen? Car found burned

Or this one? Has tattoo on neck

Or this one? Has pierced navel

Or this one? May have a hair weave

I spread out the pictures of

lavender lips

and beautiful food

and premium wines

the happy couple who sold their town home in just two weeks

and all the advice

and empty crossword puzzles

never started

I cover them with warm hay

So sweet in my nose

I want to cry

and walk away

I will return in fall

I will plant black raspberries

Small sticks in the ground will look dead at first

The newspaper will

be dirt under my nails

that will wash away

And here is Margaret Atwood's poem:

It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers

While I was building neat
castles in the sandbox,
the hasty pits were
filling with bulldozed corpses

and as I walked to the school
washed and combed, my feet
stepping on the cracks in the cement
detonated red bombs.

Now I am grownup
and literate, and I sit in my chair
as quietly as a fuse

and the jungles are flaming, the under-
brush is charged with soldiers,
the names on the difficult
maps go up in smoke.

I am the cause, I am a stockpile of chemical
toys, my body
is a deadly gadget,
I reach out in love, my hands are guns,
my good intentions are completely lethal.

Even my
passive eyes transmute
everything I look at to the pocked
black and white of a war photo,
how
can I stop myself

It is dangerous to read newspapers.

Each time I hit a key
on my electric typewriter,
speaking of peaceful trees

another village explodes.

(by Margaret Atwood, 1939-)