If You Want To Be Listened To,

Attention Is Love, What We Must Give Children, Mothers, Fathers, Pets, Our Friends, The News, The Woes Of Others. What We Want To Change We Curse And Then Pick Up A Tool. Bless Whatever You Can With Eyes And Hands And Tongue. If You Can't Bless It, Get Ready To Make It New.

We Admire Predators - Panthers, Lions, Tigers, Even Wolves. Maybe To Be Naturally Thoughtful And Hesitant To Use Violence Is To Be Somehow Second Rate. To Be In The Middle Of The Social Food Chain. Especially If You're A Man. This Society Thinks Real Men Are Violent.

Listening Is Terribly Important If You Want To Understand Anything About People. You Listen To What They Say And How They Say It, What They Share And What They Are Reticent About, What They Tell Truthfully And What They Lie About, What They Hope For And What They Fear, What They Are Proud Of, What They Are Ashamed Of. If You Don't Pay Attention To Other People, How Can You Understand Their Choices Through Time And How Their Stories Come Out?

The Work Of The World Is Common As Mud. Botched, It Smears The Hands, Crumbles To Dust. But The Thing Worth Doing Well Done Has A Shape That Satisfies, Clean And Evident.

I Will Choose What Enters Me, What Becomes Flesh Of My Flesh. Without Choice, No Politics, No Ethics Lives. I Am Not Your Cornfield, Not Your Uranium Mine, Not Your Calf For Fattening, Not Your Cow For Milking. You May Not Use Me As Your Factory. Priests And Legislators Do Not Hold Shares In My Womb Or My Mind. If I Give It To You, I Want It Back. My Life Is A Non-negotiable Demand.