The other week, I experienced poetry whilst shopping for seedlings at a market. Has this ever happened to you? To begin with, I bumped into a delightful yet unsung hero: Sister Lilliane Flavin of Hope House.
She is an Irish woman who has for years lived with and fought for vulnerable families (in the neighborhood once defined by the St. Thomas Housing Development). We swapped gardening tips. Sister Lilliane described to me with great excitement how her avocado tree had produced hundreds of avocados in October. And then she whispered in my ear, “You know, Richard, “Happiness is neither virtue, nor pleasure, nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.” How’s that for a Saint Patrick’s Day farmers market story? Shopping for tarragon and sage, only to wind up with William Butler Yeats.
For the WWNO Farmers Market Minute, this is Richard McCarthy.
