Julie Hobert's Memorial Service Poem

It's taken me a while to post this. This is what I wrote for E's service:

When I first met her
she had this vision
about bats and bees
and native trees

this is what we must do
Elizabeth said
it starts right here.
With the water table
flowing beneath us,
the sum of our actions
seeps through the earth
she came to me with a plan
a five year plan
drawn up on paper in colored markers

This was urgent and important
she said
education, gardens, initiatives,
a path for the bees and butterflies
corner to corner
linking our community
it was to be called
the greening of northcenter
a blog, but really a community movement
We had just started
Northcenter Neighborhood Association
and I thought
Who were these crazy environmental ladies?
Pushing us down this path before we were ready
But Elizabeth could do html code
and with Lisa
she could raise bees,
write grants over vacation,
Give garden luncheons
with lovely china
She could do anything
this powerful woman
because she had
a vision
of the possibility
of what our community could do.

So we all held on,
because we believed in her.
she initiated us and inspired us
to bring boulders, gather plants
work the soil
connect our corners
grounded and inspired to be part
of this movement
this is the right thing to do,
this is the way.

But what else can we do?
Why not start a community garden!
Why not
Defy limitations of land cost,
water, permits, expertise
And this would not be an ordinary garden
It would be a magical garden
that would feed people.
not just people who bought the plots,
but people used to food in cans.

Bags of fresh vegetables
delivered to the food pantry
served for lunch,
hours from being picked
from this magical garden
Food justice as an action
not a concept.
So obstacles overcome,
the garden sprang up with
wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of earth,
volunteers following her like the pied piper,
music playing through it all
caccooning this garden of love
of the earth and our interconnectedness.

this is her vision, she has inspired us all
on the possibility
of what can be done together
as a community
with action and the earth under fingernails
the earth that is in her blood,
that is in all of us.
she got it
the oneness of us all

- Julie