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Planting Palm Tree Seeds

as a gift to a friend for his wedding
we’ve decided to plant trees everywhere

you know, to help the environment,
to give birth to trees
marking the birth of his wedding

and I ordered baby trees to plant
and I told my mom about this:

and I mentioned the palm tree seeds
that grow in huge pods near her house

and I know a palm tree
won’t grow from seed in this climate

but she was coming back
to this part of the country again
for her second round of chemo
for her leukemia that won’t go away

and she actually got palm tree seeds
from the ground
and collected them in a plastic bag for me

you know, just for effect

we know they won’t live
but it was the sweetest thing
that you got these for me, mom

I kind of want to drill a hole
through one of the seeds
and wear it as a charm
something more to keep from you

and now I’ve got this bag of palm tree seeds
in my office now

that I am to plant to signify life
and

and

life, you signify life, mom
this is going to become my spiritual
struggle to find life, mom

my planting these seeds you gave me
that we both knew wouldn’t grow
but I’ll plant them anyway


Copyright © 2006 Janet Kuypers.

U.S. Government Copyright © 2004
Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers
on all art and all writings on this site completed
before 6/6/04. All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.

video video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers (wrapped in VHS tape) in her 8/14/15 show “Farewell Chicago” in her final scheduled feature at Poetry’s “Love Letter” (while living in Chicago) in Chicago (Canon fs200), with her poems Chicago, Breaking Their Heart, change (2015 edit), Planting Palm Tree Seeds, Shared Air, Other Souls, and ever leave me.
video video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers (wrapped in VHS tape) in her 8/14/15 show “Farewell Chicago” in her final scheduled feature at Poetry’s “Love Letter” (while living in Chicago) in Chicago (Canon Power Shot), with her poems Chicago, Breaking Their Heart, change (2015 edit), Planting Palm Tree Seeds, Shared Air, Other Souls, and ever leave me.
the “Farewell Chicago” 8/14/15 chapbook
Download poems in the free chapbook
Farewell Chicago

of this & other poems read 8/14/15 at a live Chicago show

the book The Beauty and the Destruction

my hand to an anim of jkchair