The more sincere the soul, the heavier the cross endured.

Unless you are here: this garden refuses to exist. Pink dragonflies fall from the air and become scorpions scratching blood out of rocks. The rainbows that dangle upon this mist: shatter. Like the smile of a child separated from his mother’s milk for the very first time. --from poem Blood and Blossoms

Happy World Poetry Day: 'The American identity has never been a singular one and the voices of poets invariably sing, in addition to their own, the voices of those around them.

Where humanity sowed faith, hope, and unity, joy’s garden blossomed.

It becomes more and more difficult to avoid the idea of black men as subjects of not just racial profiling but of an insidious form of racial obliteration sanctioned by silence.

Know yourself fearlessly (even quietly) for all the things you are.

The fate that condemns or saves one sooner or later often condemns or saves another.