They wanted

“No, no, they wanted to have kids
They were into the family thing
and she’s not mentally ill—
She just sees the world differently
than you and I do
To her it’s a funky, quirky place
She’s playful”

Persist and resist

He wore a rough Greek cloth
and slept on the ground until
his mother ordered him to stop it
Once, as a kid, I followed my Dad
around the house “What are you doing?”
he asked “I’m following you” I said
“For Christ sake, cut it out”

are the elements of freedom

In my high school cafeteria
one of the friendlier cooks said,
“That’s good coal, good coal”
referring to the coffee he made
 “I made it myself,” he said
My thoughts would turn
to her in Spring 

Unconditional love hurt

Here avarice is rewarded and
your principles are baggage
All they care about is their iron grip
on power and there’s no desire
to help their fired-up supporters
“They’ll drain their pool rather
than share it with Black people”

Don’t question his ability to tough it out 

Said that old astronaut as he described
the earth from above so many years ago
“Tiny, shiny, serene and fragile”
An austere scientist once scolded a
favorite student, “I goofed and you
goofed for believing me—There’s
no authority in science”

The center of the universe was in her eyes

Within turbulent regimes and their unpredictable
powers, their spoiled autocrats, so easily distracted,
there was a certain unwarranted austerity
to Cato’s vision, joyless, moral, right,
self-conscious, and kind—“No day
once gone, can ever be revived—
Her mortality shocked me”

The center of the universe is everywhere

-May 1, 2021-