Teaching And Writing Are Separate, But Serve/feed

The Person You Have Known A Long Tme Is Embedded In You Like A Jewel. The Person You Have Just Met Casts Out A Few Glistening Beams & You Are Fascinated To See More Of Them. How Many More Are There? With Someone You've Barely Met The Curiosity Is Intoxicating.

During The Gulf War, I Remember Two Little Third Grade Girls Saying To Me - After I Read Them Some Poems By Writers In Iraq - 'you Know, We Never Thought About There Being Children In Iraq Before.' And I Thought, 'well Those Poems Did Their Job, Because Now They'll Think About Everything A Little Bit Differently.'

I Keep Thinking, We Teach Children To Use Language To Solve Their Disputes. We Teach Them Not To Hit And Fight And Bite. Then Look What Adults Do!

Where We Live In The World Is Never One Place. Our Hearts, Those Dogged Mirrors, Keep Flashing Us Moons Before We Are Ready For Them.

I Grew Up In St. Louis In A Tiny House Full Of Large Music - Mahalia Jackson And Marian Anderson Singing Majestically On The Stereo, My German-american Mother Fingering 'the Lost Chord' On The Piano As Golden Light Sank Through Trees, My Palestinian Father Trilling In Arabic In The Shower Each Dawn.