Live As Though Life Was

I Am Never Proud To Participate In Violence, Yet I Know That Each Of Us Must Care Enough For Ourselves That We Can Be Ready And Able To Come To Our Own Defence When And Wherever Needed.

Sisterhood Means If You Happen To Be In Burma And I Happen To Be In San Diego And I'm Married To Someone Who Is Very Jealous And You're Married To Somebody Who Is Very Possessive, If You Call Me In The Middle Of The Night, I Have To Come.

I Would Be A Liar, A Hypocrite, Or A Fool - And I'm Not Any Of Those - To Say That I Don't Write For The Reader. I Do. But For The Reader Who Hears, Who Really Will Work At It, Going Behind What I Seem To Say. So I Write For Myself And That Reader Who Will Pay The Dues.

Mostly, What I Have Learned So Far About Aging, Despite The Creakiness Of One's Bones And Cragginess Of One's Once-silken Skin, Is This: Do It. By All Means, Do It.

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.