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June woke up in darkness again.
It was the third morning in a row he woke up from a dream of faces he hadn’t seen in a long time.
Some cousins, friendly neighbors, and teachers he learned to love and appreciate, everyone he knew from childhood that scattered after the rain seemed to never end that day some 20 years ago, years after their town of Welcome was deemed an “existing residential/future industrial” zone and generations of folks refused to leave until they had to.
And what were they supposed to do, June thought to himself, feeling heat rise in his belly as he pushed back the sheets, remembering the loss of two houses.
He knew the petrochemical plants destroyed everything in their wake — it didn’t matter to them who existed there already or who’d come after, for what is there to remember in the midst of destruction?
It was like what June’s grandmother Bibi would always tell him; they’ve always had plans for us all to die.
And June knew she was right. Bibi was always right, knowing things before most would.
June knew all the stories, and in that moment, even thinking about the stories made him angry and is the reason he’s back in Louisiana working at an environmental law firm.
The jobs the plants promised, and the money folks brought back to their families, it was generational change for many, June witnessed it.
Change had come, just not the way his community would ever expect.
June sat up, brushed back his locs and felt the dew of sweat on his forehead.
It was too early; he was very tired having not slept much. 4:03 a.m. his alarm clock read.
He pushed back the blinds to a quiet Magazine Street.
The moonlight twinkled on the purple and green beads nestled in the trees below his window.
He dreamed of living on this street as a boy. He could point to you the exact spot he and Pop would watch the parade.
June could remember how fantastic everything looked, the way he’d marvel at the extravagant costumes, beadwork, and dancing, and how Pop would sit back naming all the troops that passed by.
There was no culture like the one he came from, and he vowed to protect it.
His new apartment was a long way from when he moved in with his grandmother at 10, to her two-bedroom shotgun on cinder blocks. He was now dreams away from all of that, a long way from everything he loved about Welcome, Louisiana.
But today was the day he’d head to Welcome to begin restoring the land as a seed dropper, a side gig he found one day walking along the Mississippi down in the Quarter.
It was a ritual for him to walk the path his Pop would walk to manage a bar full time. It was how June honored him, a reminder of how hard his Pop worked for the two of them, managing the speakeasy that ultimately worked him to death.
The advertisement for the gig was on bright yellow paper and stapled to a telephone pole.
Once he saw the word “Welcome” on the ad, he knew it was a message to go back home, to deal with the loss he’d pushed aside, never wanting to confront or accept he no longer had what belonged to him.
It had been 20 years since he’d been back to the land his grandmother was from and lived on until the end of her life. Doctors called it cancer, but June knew it was a broken heart.
Not me not me not me, Bibi would whisper as she laid back in her recliner refusing the chemo suggested to her.
If it’s not the air,
if it’s not the soil,
if it’s not the water,
then what is it? she’d yell at the doctor on the phone, the cancer didn’t just jump in my body!
There wasn’t much she could do to save the community she loved, or herself, no matter how many marches she walked or the signs she’d write with thick black markers, pushing them through carefully manicured lawns.
Their voices never seemed to be loud enough, but he knew they were, it was just easy to ignore people like his grandmother and her friends. They were working poor, Black, and had made a living on the land, away from the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
Their value was low, too low for most to see or pay attention to. They were fighting a ‘profit over humanity’ war and losing.
But June knew the game differently, and as he swung his legs to the side of the bed to get dressed, he figured he’d start his journey to Welcome earlier than he expected — just because.
At times like this June wished he had a sibling to share his thoughts and feelings with. He wished there was a way to express his love for all that life was back then.
To laugh, like really laugh, at all the silly things he did as a child. To remember Bibi openly and verbally, not just in his head.
Most of the cousins he grew up with now lived in Michigan or Colorado. Far away from Louisiana with their own lives now, and far away from the threat of endless rain and flooding.
It’s too much to live there now, one of his cousins exclaimed the other day, her voice saddened by the harsh realities of never coming back.
He understood her reasons but there was something he still needed to do in Louisiana before he could ever consider leaving — he wasn’t sure exactly what the work was, but he trusted his notion.
He spooned two helpings of French vanilla Coffeemate into a mug as he waited for the coffee to steep in the French press.
Saturday mornings were usually spent jogging with a stop at The Vintage for coffee and a beignet, but if he left the city now, he’d be able to watch the sunrise in Welcome, an old favorite.
If it wasn’t for the promise he made Bibi the morning she slipped away, to see the fight through, he would probably leave too. June was sure of this.
He didn’t know how he would feel to see where his grandmother’s house once stood, or how it would feel to observe the aftermath of the devastation of a community and the destruction of their land and wildlife; the flattening of everything he once knew.
June wasn’t sure, but something was pulling him there, the signs were clear.
June grabbed a few of the hushpuppies from his takeout the night before and poured his coffee in his travel mug.
The early morning sky was now a navy blue, the sun was slowly opening her eyelids.
Perfect, he thought, the roads would be light, and he’d get there early enough to walk through the brush to the river to sit and watch the sun rise before others joined for their seed dropping shifts.
Wait, he wondered, would the brush be still there?
He had an idea of where he might be assigned to, since he was familiar with the area, but he had no idea what it would look like today.
He grabbed the canvas bag he placed Bibi’s seeds in.
Wherever he was assigned he’d be sure to plant some of her seeds there too in memory of her labor on the land and all the ways she fed her family and community.
Maybe one day they’d flourish, he considered, and a family who moves on the land will discover the unexpected garden.
June clicked a button near his front door that set an alarm and programmed his blinds to open upon sunrise.
He chuckled as he closed the door — Bibi would have gotten a kick out of his slick city apartment.
Growing up in Welcome was simple. Beautiful, but simple.
As he hopped in his truck, he quickly silenced the talk radio. It was too early for the voices of others, he wanted to instead live in the memories of Welcome.
He thought back to when he was 10, and first moved in with Bibi.
He would watch her rise at 5 a.m. to make her way slowly through the house.
First she would make a cup of lemon balm and sassafras tea, and then she would grab her blue woven hat, the knee pad he painted for her in 6th grade, her precious folder of seeds, her hand shovel, and then she’d place all of that in her bucket and drag the hose she’d pull from its arm extended from the house as she shuffled down the porch steps to her sanctuary.
Always knees first to hit the ground, then hands, as Bibi would steady herself to offer prayers for a rich harvest season.
This was her ritual — every late summer and early spring.
She’d spread and count out her seeds from the harvest before, humming and sending silent prayers into their little voids as blessings, for it was her garden that fed the two of them throughout the year when he lived with her full time.
From fresh leafy greens, herbs, okra, black-eyed peas, and tobacco, to the pickle jars that lined the walls of their storm room, he grew to learn that his grandmother understood the patterns of nature, and more importantly, when a storm was coming.
Because it wasn’t that he feared the weather or worms or roots that stretched themselves deep into unknown worlds, he just wasn’t ready to communicate with the earth in the ways Bibi did.
He instead observed Bibi from afar, too scared to get close to the mud or the trees or the creatures making their homes out of whatever leftovers escaped the cookouts nearby.
Pop would tell him that Welcome was gonna be nothingness and every-thingness all at once; Bibi represented the every-thingness.
It took several months for June to adjust that first year and to truly understand what he observed in Bibi; her quiet thunder and expansive wonder for all living things.
The way she’d encourage him off the porch to join her in the garden, sprinkle a little dirt on his hands and introduce him to her crops, crops that represented the cycle of life.
June grew to appreciate nature, to see himself in it, and of it.
The day before the rain never ended, June was 17, walking around the house with a nail gun, holding boards of wood to secure anything the winds could blow away, and then the unmentionable happened.
The day of rain also became the day Bibi’s lungs began to expand in her chest and her coughs lifted her clear off the wooden floors.
There was blood and mucus and tightness in her throat.
She panicked at the thought that she had indeed ingested poisonous chemicals, had somehow ingested it in her eggplant, or maybe it was the acorn squash or when she took walks?
And while reaching for mullein and nettle steeped in apple brandy, he heard her call out his nickname, Buuug!
Just before the chapel bell rung thrice as warning;
just before Mrs. Mae pounded on the door with haste;
just before June realized there were too many things happening at once;
and as the sky quickly turned slate, Bibi was gone.
June walked slowly across the newly made clearing, remembering when he and his cousins would run through a thick, full brush of trees just to get a glimpse of her so clearly, but not today. Amongst the fallen branches and flooded muddy pockets of overgrown weeds the ground was slightly lower than before.
It was the evidence of industrial damage caused by the closure of plants and the runoff of flood water and structural loss.
Trash peppered the land everywhere. Even in the river sediment the city piled to raise the clearing’s elevation.
It was also the evidence of death. June noticed how quiet everything was; no birds, no snakes, no fish, no gators, nothing.
June glowered, don’t let her see you scared now (he heard Bibi from a distance).
As beautiful as the river was so early in the morning, it saddened him to see no forest of trees, everything was missing in its beautiful mysterious action.
if only Bibi was here, he thought, what would she say? How would she feel? Where would she want her seeds planted?
He knew his grandmother was watching over him, guiding him to the perfect spot.
As he pressed his canvas bag tighter against his hip, he stepped slowly onto the swampy clearing and snapped one branch at a time watching the muds of yesteryears bubble against his boot.
Moving carefully through, he began to identify the fallen leaves and grasses he’d seed later.
He smelled the memory of grilled okra and boiled meat.
With each step he unearthed a memory of someone he knew, heard the voices of children playing again and the possibilities of what this area could become now, but how?
He listened for Bibi’s voice in his head again.
She is the one who taught him to not be afraid, especially in times of hopelessness.
As June looked around, he couldn’t help but to question the effects of seed dropping.
How could anything grow here, he whispered out loud.
How could their state, their city, and the country allow such damage?
He felt heat rise in his body again remembering the effects of flooding he lived through, let alone Bibi and others over the years.
June bent down to pick up a branch to examine the dead roots – there had been too much water, as the branch softly turned to mush in his hand.
As June continued to walk, he reached the edge of the floodplain to the open arms of his impressive old friend.
So massive, so beautiful, so deadly he thought, remembering their many evacuations.
But as Bibi would always tell him, it was never the Mississippi’s fault: She only moves when they move her and don’t protect her.
And that he understood now, but back then, he never understood the storm parties and all the folks grilling their last earnings of food, waiting and waiting for something to happen to them.
For rain to pour, for winds to rip and ravage.
When he was younger June hated the Mississippi, and after the second time their home (or what seemed like to him) melted before their eyes while they watched from a neighbor’s boat, he vowed to never be near the Mississippi again.
At first, he figured he’d just sit by the river like old times and watch the sunrise.
But as he began to sit down, he heard voices in the air, coming closer to his ears – but he wasn’t afraid.
He just laid back, allowing the sounds to overcome him, to take him under, the way Bibi would talk about how God and soil were one, her hands deeply covered in the essence of them both.
If you get to know her, trust her and let her trust you, you’ll know that when it’s moist and cool, it’s time to plant.
Now it was his turn to trust the land;
to trust the river;
to trust the stories;
to trust the voices;
to trust himself.
As June walked his zone, he bent every few feet to shovel a shallow hole and drop a few seeds that would hopefully sprout strong roots.
His fingers pulled back soft pockets of mud, feeding it with seeds.
One — two — three.
June found himself counting out loud the steps of dig, pull, drop.
The repetitive action was therapeutic; he welcomed the mindfulness of how his body was aligning with restoring the land his family used to reside.
By the time his body needed a break, he noticed a clearing of grasses by the old oil refinery.
It was unusually clear, a place where he knew Bibi’s seeds could be planted.
A new space to garden for future generations.
It was out of the zone for seed droppers, but he was already far away from where other seeders were planting their trees and he could see their faint backs bending in rhythm not paying attention to him.
As he walked closer to the grassy area, he remembered that as a child whenever he and his cousins would run in the field behind the house, from the refinery he could look back and see the back of Bibi’s second house, since it was built on stacks of double cinder blocks for future flooding and the back porch could be seen through the tall trees.
But now, there were no tall trees and as June squinted to see out beyond the clearing there were no homes standing or buildings at all — everything was gone.
But something kept pulling him out anyway
June hooked his hand shovel to his belt and placed the seeds back into their pack as he set to walk toward Bibi’s old land.
As he got closer and closer to the clearing, he could hear Bibi’s voice and the memory of their time in the garden was becoming clearer with each step.
Bibi dropped a few okra seeds in June’s little hands and watched as he mimicked her by slowly offering the seeds to the earth, covering them with some dirt and pouring a little water on top. Silently concentrating, June looked up at Bibi for approval. Like this?
Yea, bug, you got it. You doing good here.
Bibi dropped more seeds as June continued down the row for okra behind her.
June could feel his grandmother’s warm breath on his shoulder, her warm hands covering his as she led his hands into the soil, smiling at his efforts despite his fear of getting dirty.
June’s heart was beating very quickly. He wasn’t prepared for the well of emotion being back home would bring him and stopped to wipe his eyes with a towel.
As he lifted his head, he noticed a boxlike structure standing still, like someone forgot to take it with them.
He stuffed the towel back in his bag and began toward the box in the field.
What was it? Why hadn’t he seen it before? Where did it come from?
As June got closer, he realized it was a yellow phone booth, standing idle in the open clearing with what looked like freshly grown grasses surrounding it.
A note hung from a beaded string.
It read: Reimagine A New World.
SHARE YOUR SORROWS OF THE EARTH HERE.
She will hear you.
Without hesitation June entered the booth and picked up the receiver to see two buttons:
SPEAK
and
LISTEN
June pressed LISTEN and heard the voice of a young woman, slowly attempting to apologize to her father for never wanting to go fishing with him. She said it was the year 2032 and most of the fish were dead in the river or poisoned by the chemical runoff in the Susquehanna River.
It was now 2050 and June knew that river was up north, not in Louisiana.
June continued to listen to the young woman’s plea for forgiveness from her father and then she hung up.
Wow, June thought, how could this be — and pressed LISTEN again.
This time it was a young kid, maybe 10, saying that he was sorry for littering, that he didn’t like listening to his mother.
June smiled at this confession; it was heartwarming and innocent, but yes, he thought, protecting the earth does begin with littering.
He pressed LISTEN again — whoa, whoa, whoa, June said out loud, this time it was a retired executive from an oil company out in Houston; he knew that his company was polluting the air and the water supply in the communities near the plant but confessed that he didn’t want to lose his job, so he didn’t do anything about it.
June kept listening, his mouth gaping in horror from the confession.
He hung up the receiver and left the booth to walk to the back to see if there was a cord, or anything attached to it; not above, not below, nothing.
Whose idea was this? A telephone booth to collect the private sorrows of the ways we haven’t protected the planet.
He screamed out HELLO into the nothingness his Pop told him about, and all he heard was his own echo back, reminding him how Bibi would tell him that out here his voice could exercise its own freedom and strength.
This, she would say, is where you find yourself, not hiding in the cities, but under the wide sky being seen and heard.
June went back into the booth and picked up the receiver, this time pushing SPEAK.
He knew that Welcome was exactly where he found his voice and right now, he had stories he wanted to share with the earth.
And after a deep breath and dropping his bag to the floor of the booth, June spoke to his grandmother like no time had passed at all.
simóne j banks is a writer-poet interested in listening. Lately, her writing has immersed itself infinitely in the study of Black ecologies, with a focus on land, water bodies, air, and plant life including African American herbalism. She is writing her debut collection of poetry, continuum, a poetry + photography project that seeks to restage, reimagine, and restore the seen and unseen relationship between the Black body and nature.
Violeta Encarnación is an award-winning Cuban illustrator illustrator based in New York City, known for her vibrant, storytelling-driven visuals across traditional and digital media. Her work has appeared in publications like The New York Times, Sports Illustrated Kids, and The Washington Post. Her latest illustrated picture book, Together We Remember, published by Penguin Random House, is currently available for preorder. Violeta’s art often explores our connection to nature and each other, inviting viewers to reflect on these relationships.
