You’re the Beautiful Resistance
There’s something about your sharing with me Tears usually are the result Not sadness as in Ach But gratitude as in Ah I’ve known you nine years plus So, of course, we inter-are Muriel Ruykeyser:…
Category: Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine
Mark Chmiel is Made of Non-Mark Chmiel Elements
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches out of the Buddhist tradition: There is no separate self capable of existing on its own One thing is connected to so much else The sheet of paper is made of…
Remembering Rosa Parks
That week Rosa Parks was lying in state in Washington, DC I asked the students what they knew of her There was the standard talk Her sitting down Her standing up How courageous she was…
DIY
You have to write your own history, nobody’s going to do it for you. Allen Ginsberg
The Delight of Short Chapters
That is why I want to use short chapters, each with verselike heading, and very many such chapters; slowly, deeply, moodily unfolding the moody story and its long outreaching voyage into strange space. And to…
One Person Can Change Everything for Us/1
Somebody holds the mirror up Unlocks the door Something jerks it open and you’re shoved in And your head has to go into a different place Sometimes it takes a certain somebody To make you…
Daydream/1 (Jesus/1 [Touching a Nerve/2])
A man came to Jesus and said, “Teacher of goodness, teach me something that you know and I do not, that benefits me and does you no harm.” Jesus asked, “What would that be?” The…
Dear Mark
Dear Mark, Here is my reflection of Dear Layla, I thought at first that I should apologize for the scatter-brained style of writing I’m sure this letter will take. Then I thought, he probably doesn’t…
Passing
I get a daily Google Alert For Harold Bloom One of my favorite writers I read this morning of a brilliant, gifted, recent Yale graduate Named Marina Keegan Who died Saturday in a car wreck…
Arabic Mantra
When you feel like you’re far from home and you are When you choose to breathe in and breathe out When you approach a preoccupied stranger in the sooq When you see a five-year-old boy…