05/27/2026
I was inspired to write a poem about an anti-fascist flower. 🌹
I recently rewatched *The Sound of Music* for the first time in years and found myself deeply moved by the radical history and symbolism of the edelweiss flower — a quiet emblem of resistance in the face of fascism.
That led me to write about the Peggy Martin rose, an old Southern heirloom variety famous for surviving the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina. She remained submerged for weeks, and when the waters finally receded, she was still alive and blooming.
To me, Peggy Martin represents the stubborn, unrelenting will to survive that exists among marginalized people. Katrina was, in so many ways, a manufactured disaster — one that exposed how the state leaves poor communities, Black communities, q***r folks, and the working class vulnerable. And still, people endured.
Peggy is an avatar of survival. A reminder that resilience is not passive — it is defiance.
I’m not especially musically inclined, but part of me would love to hear this poem turned into a folk song someday.
