"The only thing more unsettling than having your faith shaken is having your lack of faith shaken."

-- William Alexander, 52 Loaves

At the Library

At the Library
------

Legos speak English.
Legos speak Spanish.
Legos speak Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi.
Shhhh, grown-ups--
Children are listening
To legos, at the library
Teach how to be American.

Struck Out Again

I Love Our Liason

Warm and Squishy

Who Gets the Cookies

This Wouldn't Happen In Israel

For the Present

Afflicting My Own Comfort

"Let them unfriend you," she said.
I did not want to hear it.

"You have to understand," she said,
"That choosing to silence yourself
To the people who won't listen to us,
Is choosing to waste the privilege that we don't have."

"Deciding you can't afford the energy
To keep arguing on our behalf,
is an act of entitlement."

"Walking away
And leaving the walls of their echo chamber
To grow thicker and stronger
Is the opposite of teaching them something."

I did not want to hear it.
I listened anyway.

Parent Suggested, Four Year Old Approved

"I have built an army of robots!"
"Oh! What are they doing?"
"They are attacking people!"
"Quick, go get your knights to defend the people!"
"Good idea!"

Welp.  Looks like we have a game plan for the day.

"We'll cross that bridge when we're ready to burn it."

"...you only want me to
know your hunger
you do not want
food"

-- scrap of Anonymous poem, featured in a Powerpoint

Other People's Poems

"The Guest House" by Rumi 

"The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

"The Journey" by Mary Oliver

"Litany for Survival" by Audre Lorde

"Nikki-Rosa" by Nikki Giovanni

"Ordinary Heartbreak" by David Levine

"Pain for a Daughter" by Anne Sexton

"since feeling is first" by e e cummings

"somewhere i have never travelled" by e e cummings

"The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver

"True Love" by Robert Penn Warren

We have been telling you 
this is not a country safe
For a trans person to walk alone
For a black person to drive alone
For a woman to say No
to the wrong person
We have been telling you
that the refugees who do get through
say that surviving here
as poor people of color
with limited English
is harder
than what they survived
to get here
We have been telling you that
all of this has been happening
all of this time
before photo phones and social media
got you thinking about it
We have been telling you
how common open bigotry is
how dangerous latent prejudice is
and you did not really believe us
because of your own latent prejudice
which includes the latent classism
that had you believing
that the end of the factory town
and the end of family farm
and a generation of blue collar youth
marching into military hell
so they could have a place to eat
were sad things happening somewhere else
that wouldn't affect your life.
So, NOW you say 
your idea of America has been destroyed?
Well. Thank God something good has come from this.
America
was always a becoming
America
was never a prize in hand.
Go get some Langston Hughes in one hand,
and a shovel in the other--
We are ready to work beside you 
when you are.

Portraits