To Love What Is Plentiful

South Bend on Purpose is a podcast about place, belonging, and South Bend hosted by Jacob Titus, Dustin Mix, and John Garry.

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This week on South Bend on Purpose, we are reading Alice Walker’s poem “We Alone” and reflecting on what it might be saying about our life together in South Bend.

Last week, we asked co-host John Garry why we're trying this new kind of episode:

Poetry is a conversation with your community. I love poetry. It is, for me, a way that I have seen new parts of our city and seen new parts of the story. And it lends itself well to thoughtful practice. So, this is our chance to have a conversation and to create some open and structured space to think about certain aspects of our city that maybe we hadn't appreciated and the way we fit into that story.

WE ALONE

We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.

Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.

This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce.

-Alice Walker (1991)