“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “You can’t free a slave unless he knows he’s in bondage.” ~Dead Prez We can’t go on like this. No matter what popped into your head as the antecedent of “this,” you know…

I am one of thousands of teachers whose classes have moved online. This is a letter I wrote my high school seniors this evening. Dear Students, The world is changing so fast, it almost feels like the ground is crumbling away beneath our feet. I think about you all often…

I never asked her, so I’m guessing here, but I imagine that she cared not a whit about dog-whistling in any obscure poetic code to win the approval of any of the so-called “right” people; she wanted to transmit truth, and she did so, and I believe that this is…

I once had a student who moved like water, so much so that one day when she came in out of the rain, I could barely tell where the drops of rain ended and she began. And when she spoke, I could barely tell where she ended and her words began. “I remember something…

I have oh so many words to express grief and suffering. I can oh so poetically tell you about my pain. I am oh so good at articulating sorrow. Here. Check out my latest iteration: It’s like I’m clinging to a sheer cliff face, trying to climb. And sometimes I do manage to…

A poet must go outside for at least ten minutes a day, no matter the weather. It is a mercy of the kind that leads me to continue to believe in a force…

I’m not one for waving a banner or bellowing: LOOK AT ME! You looked anyway with a Presence that had dropped away enough falsity to awaken the Presence in me. To ignite my courage to drop away even…

We’re flipping channels one evening and come across a few minutes of a Trump rally. I can’t decide which disgusts me more: the fact that he’s still holding rallies, or the fact that so many people are still attending them. I need a palate cleanser after that, so I turn…

I asked God: “How do I wear beauty with neither arrogance nor apology?” She answered: “Like a tree.”