This summer Urban Education and Outreach Interns and supervisors wrote collective
poems about metaphors for their connection to the land at the Urban
Learning Farm. Below you’ll find their poems. They also painted the shed
at the Urban Learning Farm, putting the poems on the shed. Collective poems are when a group of people does a free-write exercise, they then choose phrases that they like and a poem is created using those selected phrases and words.

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Just Like Bees

Just like bees,
we create honey from the sweat of 100 degree days.
We build our hive rectangular,
greater than the sum of its parts.
Neither the land nor the bees can live
without one another.
We are bees pollinating
stories of gardens from Roxbury to Scotland.
It takes a group effort.
We create a beautiful bond with each other
As we work.
Bees work together, creating life,
Enriching the local community past its boundaries.
Inducing better appreciation
for our daily bread and knowledge.

Land of Presence

Land of presence
transformed from a weedy patch.
Arduous effort, planning,
perspiring, and working towards ideals.
Painting the future of growth.
Murals had to grow up quickly;
Documenting my life and the lives of others.
Driving by, everybody’s looking.
You don’t need a degree in agriculture
To experience the profound power of
Growing food.
One sole finished product
Reflects the community.
Whether a garden or a mural
Both teach without requiring previous knowledge,
a billboard advertising unique perspectives.