Be Rad

Spicy Disrupter

Illustration by talented Hudson Valley artist Jean Mackay

Radical is a darling word

Listen to it’s musicality

A charming ditty

Perhaps I’m smitten

With the word

I see a small red radish

Growing rich with nutrients

Expanding its midline

Breaking up hard dirt

Its growing there

Its littleness drills down 

Towards something deep 

I adore sweet and spicy roots

The word radical 

It’s root radix

Means to be rooted

When I hear this word

I see the act of disruption

Tapping into something rich

An underground life source

We need radical people

To disturb dry and dead ground

They are our regenerators

Spicy people

This is a poem I wrote in a 6 minute prompt in my Tailspinning writers group last month. These past weeks I’ve spent most of my hours writing an extensive proposal to key stakeholders in a place. The proposal calls to build and provide safe and supportive transitional housing for young adults; an overlooked and under resourced demographic who are the future of a place. Youth who need shelter so they may grow roots, and aerate hard soil and grow as healthy perennials. It’s a different form of writing but in its own way it’s data driven testimony for the call of (and from) the radish.

When you hear the phrase “That’s rad” may you too think of the twirling red radish doing something powerful!