Table of Contents
Acknowlegements ix
Politics
History books praise them, colonial poets 2
Days of broken glass and bloody needles 3
There was a time when things 4
All of this happens in the space of two hours 5
Dread, dressed in police uniforms 6
There was a time 7
A career where the food you eat 9
Windchimes 10
Just back from a trip 11
If not me, then who 13
Re-entry has become so dangerous 15
Among you fellow citizens there are those 16
Wikipedia, "Since the 16th century, Lady Justice …" 17
You've been posing way too long 20
9 to 5 workweek for a paycheck 21
White privilege has convinced me 23
We all know hell 24
America 25
Even as your ICE officials bang 27
We don't need a July 4th celebration 28
Black brothers and sisters 29
In praise of poets 30
Poetry
To be a poet you must have gratefulness 32
The poem is a witness 33
A certain gravity 34
A mirage works for a wanderer in the desert 35
If a book walked up and slapped 36
Somehow I've lost touch with why 37
Lament of a poet out of favor 38
My friend Alfred, disappeared 40
The heart is a museum of natural history 43
A hard long week 44
I'm tired of me 46
My prayer 47
Writers work 48
Bullets in Bodies 49
Another poet stood up and read 51
This bearded poet in San Francisco 52
Education
Overcast day, late Autumn 58
Trust 59
An eighth grader stabbed another one 60
Inside a portable classroom in Atlanta, Georgia 61
The rich side of town clamored for it 62
Teachers, I want you to 63
Born the moment I held a pencil 66
Imagine 67
Turn the classroom 68
A Sack of Potatoes, A Bowl of Apples
Imagine having names 70
Set the mind aside like a black hat 71
Two Kenyans in the afternoon heat 72
They say the crow in your dream 73
Wind blows 74
Never separate from your sadness 75
Mention whatever your mind 76
My heart 77
One sack of potatoes 78
Some live looking back 79
Sometimes you think 80
When writing 81
Allow the Angels In
The secret 84
Poetic Prayer 86
You who cannot forgive 87
Eleven years in an orphanage 88
At four 90
Definitions of Happiness 91
Think 92
Us 93
If you listen intently 94
Everything's getting closed in 95
Wildlife
In Attenborough's Our Planet 98
Morning prayer, after running 100
I never learned anything in the right place. I could not sit 101
Wednesdays when the trash truck arrives 102
On my hike 103
Buffalo Prayer 104
Buffalo Dance 105
Buffalo Poem 107
My Prayer to the Buffalo 110
Buffalo Rain 112
In the 1850s the village was a trading post 114
The Time of Gardens 118
Schools closed 119
Yesterday, clambering, ducking 121
I hiked eleven miles yesterday 122
After the rigorous hike 124
Driving in last night, my son 125
Running the foothills 126
Hiking 127
