Yehuda Amichai is an Israeli poet who was born in pre-war Germany. He described his poetry as non-ideological, but based in reality that includes politics.
I chose this poem, as it points out challenges we face when we think life is simple and others will deliver solutions for us. Jacques Rancière wrote that politics is not an all the time event. It arises occasionally and we must be mindful to recognize the need to act politically. Hannah Arendt contended living with others means we live in polis or community, suggesting a political reality always exists in life.
Living with others is political, but not every act is political. It is hard to live with others and be in community. Amichai suggested the trampled and hardened ground we share is unlikely go produce flowers . Yet, there is always something happening below the surface that we cannot see. Metaphoric moles we do not see dig up and plough our world. It is the whispers of what passed that way that provides compost for the communal soil.
Even in the barren, we find richness. Barry Lopez describes how even in the most desolate places something draws us and we are interested in what we do not see: the mystery of the place.
From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.
The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.
But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.
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About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
Lovely poem! I like the concept of metaphoric moles working unseen…digging underneath the place where we are right.
Thank you. Sometimes it is what we don’t see that says the most.