Lyrics and music by Robin Holly
Chorus:
Tell me if you can, where does hope come from?
What makes a pile of trash a garden in your eyes?
Tell me if you can, where does hope go to?
Where can it bloom again when the garden dies?
Twenty years ago I'm told it was a trash heap
Concrete and brick, where the junkies made their base
But the neighbors saw a chance to make it something different
They started taking trash out, planting flowers in its place
But what use a garden when the city needs apartment buildings
Neither courts nor city government was willing to see their side
They tried to stop the developers, appealed to the mayor
They stood firm-- Grains of sand before the tide
Chorus:
Alicia had some lettuce, carrots and tomatoes
But the rows of shiny peppers surely were her pride
Twenty years of joyful work changing with the seasons
All bulldozed under, and all she can do is cry
The defenders of the garden have gone home to mourn
Not a living things stirs in the spot where they stood
Tell me what meaning we should find in the death of Esperanza
Where power and money outweigh the common good?
Chorus
Based on "Death of a Garden", the audio diary of Jose Torres, recording the fight to save Esperanza Garden. It aired on All Things Considered on Thursday, February 24, 2000.