While profoundly mourning the election of Donald Trump, I can see that we as progressives have failed to listen to our brethren on "the other side." Worthy people who have been so desperate for a change in their lives they were willing to vote for a man whom many of them know is a scoundrel in every possible sense of the word. I need not enumerate his defects.

Typical of the "elite," I did not spend time talking to, or simply being with, Trump supporters. I have only grumbled from the sidelines about what a nightmare It would be for us all if "they" prevailed. They did, and for many of us, it is.

I have no solutions to watching pieces fall into place in a shockingly new dark puzzle.

For now, I will expand my vegetable garden. I will get my hands in the earth, pray, watch things grow, and honor Michelle Obama, as her garden, like many beautiful things we have created, may not survive the process of "making our country great again."

On the other hand, it's worth reaching out to the new administration to suggest keeping a magnificent, bi-partisan cornucopia of fruits and vegetables flourishing as a gesture of mending a fraction of the damage done to each other by not listening.

-Joan Baez