Don't Trust People Who Don't

By Love I Don't Mean Indulgence. I Do Not Mean Sentimentality. And In This Instance, I Don't Even Mean Romance. I Mean That Condition That Allowed Humans To Dream Of God.that Condition That Allowed The "dumb" To Write Spirituals And Russian Songs And Irish Lilts. That Is Love, And It's So Much Larger Than Anything I Can Conceive.

Yet It Is Only Love Which Sets Us Free.

In The Fifties, You Have Your Beauty As A Treat. I Thought That Until I Hit The Sixties.in Your Sixties, Life Decides To Reward You With Certain Kinds Of Profound Appreciation, So That People Name Their Children And Schools And Libraries After You! And You Still Have Your Sexuality And Your Sensuality. If You Want Your Sexuality, You Still Have It.

If You Have A Song To Sing, Who Are You Not To Open Your Mouth And Sing To The World?

Oh, Black Known And Unknown Poets, How Often Have Your Auctioned Pains Sustained Us? Who Will Compute The Lonely Nights Made Less Lonely By Your Songs, Or By The Empty Pots Made Less Tragic By Your Tales? If We Were A People Much Given To Revealing Secrets, We Might Raise Monuments And Sacrifice To The Memories Of Our Poets, But Slavery Cured Us Of That Weakness.