You embodied his dreams, and with it, his oversights

-from Mr Nichols, by Coldcut (featuring Saul Williams) - and all those in italics

So much focus on my father's death for so many years.

Today she learns to meditate on a second-hand couch

This last weekend, appreciation for my mother and missing her continued. In January 2007, it will be ten years since she died.

You contemplate the setting sun, unaware of your disorientation. Dis-orient, turned away from the east.

Tonight, talking to a new rich voice in my life, I peered out from the tiny window death has opened on my life and felt freedom. Real freedom.


You fail to see that you've always stood outside of this window, perched on the threshold of oblivion, countless manmade stories above the truth.

I can see why I have feared it for so long. To love without worry. To write without concern. Tonight a student broke through a concern she had had in class about her writing being too much "about her". Tonight, the voice that was there all along, that knows there is perception before ego, saw freedom and she let it come out. This is why I teach. I teach for all moments, even the "worst shit in America ones" (with thanks to Nat Goldberg), but those moments give me the strength to go on when I'm not sure about what I am doing, which is rare, honestly, a privileged rarity.

For so long you've stood facing the setting sun, mistaking the complimentary unified duality of nature as being right or wrong... Instead of stepping from this ledge into the downfall of your uprise, why not just turn around, lessen the intensity of your western glare and face the rising sun, note the energy swirling from its center, how it illumes us all, and how only the birds fly first class...

It's not about me or anyone. And yet, here we are, pens in hand, hands on keyboards, plunking out words into the night. Words that come before us, after us. Words like water.

There's your inheritance. The warmth of a kiss. Invest your tongue into the mouth of mystery. Allow her breath to seep into your lungs, surrender to her touch and guidance. There's no other way. Your dreams of dominance will only help you forsake yourself.

Thank you for being here.