What Crosses My Mind

  • An Observation In Absence

    The other night I attended ‘Just Mercy’ at our local theater complex. It was a late showing, but still I was struck with wonder about the emptiness of the room. I was actually the only person in the theater, it was a rather surreal experience. Now I’ve been to shows with limited audience in the…

  • Philando Castile

    I recently told a friend of mine I have sometime wished I was black, and as the words left my mouth, the expression on his face indicated to me he was immediately offended. I knew I’d made a horrific presumption, and felt compelled to find him a little later on to continue our dialogue.  I…

  • When Childhood Seemed Innocent

    We would play, for hours in May, anticipating the summer day, those opportunities ahead that contained no worries, no stress, no school remained.   I remember our time spent on the court the roundball, and later building a fort we camped in the woods across the fields, we lived for all the beauty that nature…

  • While Understanding Matters

    In speaking out loud, one suggested, there is little that matters, mixing paint, the blend is a natural course of a process, one that’s surely been in place, long before our own, personal reaction. We sometimes play with dye, adjusting colors for our own benefit, philosophy, comfort zone. For when the artist, will display their…

  • Race Dialogue Matters

    Hear that, disparaging commentary, confront it today, walk away tomorrow, tonight, every day we hear something, close eyes, and imagine a beautiful sunrise, anything to move me, my mind, my attitude, my conscience, elsewhere. If we don’t talk about it, maybe it doesn’t matter as much, well, as much as, in a manner of speaking,…

  • A White Man’s Struggle

    I spoke of this in my classroom today, it didn’t make sense, I still haven’t figured out a way, to not seem utterly dense. I’m a White man trying to be understanding, yet every time I try I end up again, landing square upon my own ignorance and cry. I’m a White man rocked with…

  • My World A Ruthless Shame

    I grew up with certain freedoms, Though I was never really told, I only understood a world of fiefdoms From books I read. I wasn’t bold. ~ My dreams were made with managed Challenge, the bounty being compassion Beyond a society of greed is the adage Spoke a loud in a personal fashion. ~ The…

  • A Rising Fire

    There’s a frightening reality exists around our lives we’d like to believe it isn’t the panic our mind derives. ~ Yet, how else can we explain the mounting tension, the averted eyes, the tarnished world we mention. ~ Would that it mattered our own lives hang in the balance that we imagine we might never…

  • Torment Me More

    I was just beginning to relax, hadn’t found a need to react steered my way clear of facts wanting less reason to act ~ Yet you keep hammering home reality tv’s quest to comb through society’s ugly injustice to leave me in constant notice ~ of our garbage world of hate and crime that rips…

  • I Protest

    I walk into the fray, to suggest, I disagree with the status quo. There it begins, our ability to change, We do need only the challenge to create the fear of reprisal. Yet everywhere we look in the books, the words, the platforms, wherever we land always seems to encourage, the ability to change, I…