Poem by Matthew Garcia
Ignorance is Bliss
Is a myth.
See when I walk into the store
and I buy groceries
or go through a drive thru
I don’t see the faces of the Farmworkers.
I don’t see their achy backs
or cracked hands.
I don’t see the injustice
that they endure
and I don’t see their children
Wives or husbands.
But I feel it.
See it may not be conscious in our minds.
We may not think about it everyday
or cry about it at night.
But we feel it.
Maybe you don’t think you feel it.
But the pain is there
because when one person suffers
we all feel the effects.
See there’s a world going on that I
still can’t comprehend
Truth buried by a culture
that has come under
a false sense of Entitlement.
I worry we are like Adam and Eve
placed in a beautiful garden
Only to be deceived.
We eating forbidden fruit
that’s drowning in pesticides.
It looks so good and tasty
but its killing you inside.
See you reap what you sow
the Earth is not ours to trample.
Tread lightly.
We are cultivators.
Are you harvesting hope, peace, and joy
or are you ruining the land?
stripping it of its resources
and leaving drought for your children.
We are ALL investing in a crop.
So what can I do you may ask?
You become a revolutionary!
But we don’t fight with violence
No, my PEN is a gun
my mind takes aim
My words are the bullets
and my tongue is the trigger—I pull it
See, my life will come to pass
and you might even take it.
But these words,
this message
will echo on
It will always last
What does it mean to be a revolutionary?
It means every day is a day of action,
every moment is an opportunity.
It’s recognizing the need
when others look away.
It’s seeing the beauty in someone else.
It’s seeing the strength in a person
when they themselves feel no hope.
Thankfulness is not an emotion, it is a lifestyle.
A decision that only the brave choose.
It’s seeing everything as sacred.
The food we eat the air we breathe.
And so I will spread this seed.
I will plow this land
I will work for the harvest.
We will take a stand.
And I won’t stop cultivating this land.
Not until I return to it….
It is the very dust
that I came from.