Garden of Hope

by Renee Blanche Cargerman Dolezal, PhD

Today we honor those whom we have lost,
But loved so deeply, their memory lives on,
And though we suffered a heavy cost,
We refuse to sing the Song of the Swan;
And we honor those who fought for our lives:
Brave nurses, doctors, and those who delivered;
Here placed in our historical archives,
While so many of us trembled and quivered.
Resilient, we rise with courage and dreams,
Our Garden of Hope reaching for the sun.
Science enlightens our path of sunbeams,
Understanding our work is never done.
     Carl Sandburg's city is what we still are;
     We rise from ashes and look to the stars.

Renee is an award-winning poet, theatre critic, and Program Chair for Chicago’s Jeff Awards. In 2021, her book, “2020 Poetry and Portraits of Nature, Life in the Lagoon” won the 2021 Gold Medal in the national Human Relations Indie Book Award contest. 

She received her PhD in Performance Studies at Northwestern University and, as a Golden Apple teacher,  taught pregnant teens to write personal narratives performed by Steppenwolf and Stories on Stage. She went on to teach at Northwestern and UIC and publish a series of books advocating women’s marches.

 Recently, she has written 151 Shakespearean sonnets, a weekly project begun in 2022.  Above is a recent poem inspired by the work of your committee to create a monument that remembers whom we have lost and how we fight for our future.