To you, earth child, many years from now.

Some thoughts on politics for today.

Hello, I’m back with what is not at all the premise of this newsletter. A lot of my focus last year was on taking care of my grandparents, and as a result, I fell deeply out of habit with this newsletter. With that said, I finally completed a new letter about creativity this Monday. I meant for that to come out this week. But at present, it feels more appropriate to share some poetry instead.

While they are not traditionally the focus here, I don’t think I hide my politics. I often reference my stories about my past as a political speaker and my subsequent and continued search for viable paths to social progress. For the past decade, I’ve been through constant rounds of disillusionment. It’s a pathetic place that we live, that we call home. I’ve hated bolstering a Democratic Party in the past who has lacked the shreds of moral integrity, strategic foresight, and/or genuine interest in stopping this and genocides abroad. And I have too hated attending leftist anti-war rallies with 12 people in attendance, but instead of a united front, it’s 6 people arguing with the other 6 for protesting wrong. And while this poem mostly offers this, I am really only so interested in catharsis. I want more than that. I keep looking for answers, and sometimes I find them, mostly in people who are working to build genuine coalitions. People who understand that morality finds its worth when it is paired with the power to see it through. I won’t pretend to have any more than that for today.

All art betrays something about the writer’s underlying politics. Might as well be clear about them. This is a piece I wrote a few years ago and performed at the Fathomers Emergence gallery opening as part of PST ART last month in LA. I share it with ya now.

To you, earth child, many years
from now.

If I can speak plainly to you, the 
descendants of those that I love in 
the future. The children of people 
from every block in my city, and 
every country where my ancestry
trace. I would at first ask you how it 
is you’re doing today. What it is you 
love to do. And if my favorite comic 
book line is still running in your time. 

After a laugh and then a lull, I would 
have you know that in my time, I 
lived with a lot of doubt. I would want 
to tell you, where once I drew a line 
in the sand, and stood firmly by my 
morals. I at times forget and brush 
over that line, disappearing it, never 
wanting, and on occasion giving up. 

I would tell you — that I would have 
loved to lay a path for you, but as 
you may be aware, the future is 
often uncertain.

My true questions, the ones I would 
have held back, would rush out like 
calvary through a gate. 

Are you full, are you fed? Do you 
bear the cold in fleece or with grit? 
Have you received reminders from 
the powerful, that to them, your life 
and comfort hold no stock that is not 
sooner occupied by profit and greed?

Have you knowledge that things 
could be easier, but many had 
desired it to not be so?

If I were to speak to you —
I would dig my nail into the palm of 
my hand and speak harshly of my 
time and how I used it. 

If you too had ever lived in despair, 
I would provide you a companion. 
Children of earth under the stars and 
in the cold. I imagine we would sit for
a while. With a few more laughs and 
many, many, more lulls.

In time, I would offer you something
else. Something I could give, and 
give happily. 

If I could speak to you, plainly, and 
clearly. I would abandon myself of 
my sense of failure and seek you out 
from a place of love.

If I can speak plainly, and I can 
speak clearly. I would dig my heel 
into solid earth, etch my lines firmly, 
and on top of them construct castles 
of sand. Courtyards in which you 
could play and dream, and do 
nothing at all.

I would tell you, from atop the vista. I 
love you and I don’t want you to die. 
But die we do. And before it is done, 
let it not be known, but let it instead 
be felt, that we created more. Let it 
be felt that I would hold you in my 
arms and around you construct cities 
of sand. Warm and flowing.

Sharpen, sharpen, clearer and plain.

I would give a reminder, to both you 
and myself that to be brave is to face 
cosmic limits both tangible and not. 

To love the earth is to love yourself 
and all beings that ever were and 
will be.

To draw breath is a testament, 
proof that your life and future matter — for 
no other reason than the fact that 
you were born in this world.

I speak to you, earth child, 
descended of my love. You are 
whole, and for you we create.

---

That’s all for now,

Fair sailing till next week, gang.