I'm Major Jackson, and this is the slowdown.

The drive between my parents and grandparents' houses took us by 18th in Glenwood in North Philadelphia.

The neighborhood was defined by as dumped trash, old mattresses, broken furniture, pyramids of garbage bags along a street full of vacant lots.

The stretch was an eyesore.

Until residents in the rowhouses across the street, many of them with roots in the American

South took action.

Neighbors teamed up to clear the debris and junk, raised the land, and set up garden plots.

They created a community garden.

They grew okra, squash, peaches, bigs, and just about any other vegetable you can think of. That transformation was important to me.

It served as a visible metaphor for the possibility of positive change. As a green space,

the garden reduced people's senses of fear.

It eradicated the feeling of dereliction and helped to lessen crime.

Today, Glenwood Green Acres is one of the oldest community gardens in the city.

Food grown on its four acres supplies local food banks. If you go online,

you'll encounter pictures of mouth-watering pomegranates and green beans, as well as smiling

gardeners celebrating Earth Day. Today's formerly rich poem positions gardening as a powerful means of

holding on to one's culture, to one's culinary identity in a new land.

Refuge by Nehesayu de Gans

Dear Disappeared Town,

The flowers at my window remind someone of you,

say Petunias, here Batunia, town of his father's birth.

Mornings, my man leaps from my bed to brew mint cardam and tea.

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