The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice...

My prayer on this day honoring a great American (Hint: He doesn't have orange skin)

We hope, with all our hearts, that Dr. King’s words will prove themselves right, if not in our lifetimes, at least in the lifetime of the planet that has nurtured us, and put up with us, since our earliest days of making trouble for all the other living things around us.

And maybe justice will come in the form of a cataclysmic event, something of Biblical proportions that will constitute a do-over or a fresh start, cleansing the Earth of the worst of humankind, and no one will be able to buy a reprieve. And maybe no one will be able to go through the eye of that needle and the Earth will be able to heal.

Photo by Worshae on Unsplash

Speak Truth to Power

Let us love each other while we can. Let us find ways every day to be generous and kind. To feel compassion for the hungry little birds in the lifeless branches of the winter trees.

Let us—adults entrenched in our own benighted greediness—learn the lesson we try to teach to every four-year-old: We need to willingly share the goodies, the food, the opportunities, the bounty. There needs to be clean air and water and shelter for everyone, not just the rich. Not just here.

Everyone deserves to develop their potential, to learn and work and grow.

My dead father came to me in a dream and told me to look out the window, down below, to where the tips of spring bulbs—bulbs I’d planted and forgotten—were peeking up through the snow of the winter landscape that seemed so convincingly lifeless.

And when I woke up, I found the title and wrote the first sentence of what I know will be my next novel.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Let us pledge to be protectors of children everywhere, as well as the women who care for them. Let us nurture the nurturers. Let us instill a sense of meaning and purpose—of kindness—in every girl and boy. Let us make laughter the greatest gift we can give. Let every man, woman, and child know the joy of dancing.

There is beauty everywhere. Let us not get distracted by the greed and ugliness that would rob of us the precious time we still have to do good.

Let us be brave when courage is called for (and isn’t courage required every single day?).

Let us call out despots. Let us stand up for what we believe in. Let us be as honest and bold as the child who laughingly pointed out that the Emperor had no clothes.

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This would-be emperor, this blot on our history, this embarrassment to our species has no clothes (and let me shield my eyes from the ugly sight of moral bankruptcy and corruption so nakedly revealed!).

Laughter is not only a gift but also a potent weapon, especially against vanity and self-importance. Let us laugh at him wherever he goes.

Let us not betray our values.

Let us also remember to love ourselves with tenderness and, yes, forgiveness.

Let me die when I must, knowing that I tried my best to be a force for good in the world.

Let the seeds I’ve planted find a way to flower, even if this only happens after my time on this earth is done.

I’ll be at the Library of Congress later this week, to be interviewed a fourth glorious time by one of the human beings on this earth I most love and admire, former Poet Laureate of Maryland, friend to poets everywhere, host and founder of the venerable program, now a podcast, The Poet and the Poem, poet and playwright Grace Cavalieri. This will be my first in-person visit to the LOC.

Photo by Derek Goldberg on Unsplash

Huge thanks in advance to producer Michael Turpin and to Grace herself.

I just found out that a chapbook of my poems from the garden will be published this fall by Blue Moose Press, brainchild of the founding editor of the lushly beautiful journal Farmer-ish.