A friend of mine by the name of Rex Walton in Lincoln NE
wrote a poem that was inspired by an email I sent him from Africa. I wanted to share it with you and thank
Rex for sharing his talent with all of us.
Hi, Dean:
a poem in response to your letter:
Red Light Green Light
Newspaper hitting the porch, green light
at the corner green on a time-sharing basis,
water appearing at the end of the spigot.
An everyday every day. Every.
I like my coffee black, or not.
I like my strawberries, fresh, whenever.
I like what it is to like, as it happens,
as I decide to decide, or no.
I like travel voluntary, whimsey
without frenzy, to be cute about it,
because I can be cute, taking time
for cute because I have time.
I like world wars to be in someone
else's world. I like airborne bacteria
to be borne by someone elses' air.
The hospital always open, a cure awaits.
I can't remember when I last couldn't
remember when. I don't even know when
to think about choices -- I make them
because I make them, because I can.
I can remember you, your letter
of Rwanda, the Congo, peace-keeping
forces necessary for travel, bullet-
hole in the hotel room window.
I see your pictures, children
laughing in a small village,
each holding a new pencil,
each holding a small yellow tablet.
I have choices here: whether to remember
that tablet as yellow or white, to wonder
if their school is painted, or bare, if holes appear
in windowglass, if they are appearing, if they will.
I see the window, laughing. Holes
in my story fill with air, as they must, here,
if I allow them, if I acknowlege my belief
in the power of prayer. To whom do you
speak, when you know your priveledge,
from whence it came, and lingers,
how it can go so easily, a slim fog of forgetting
through the keyhole of Fortress America?
To whom to you go to, mind in the mirror, there,
when the faces of a small village, laughing for pencils,
mirror nothing you have ever known? Keep faith,
give yourself permission to let this world in,
let it work change in you, then go out with that
new construction your body made in your mind,
go out with that image of helping others to begin.
It takes so little, it takes so much, it takes believing
in the power of a pencil. It takes believing there is
something worth writing, among all words awaiting
pencils, a little yellow tablet, an almost-flat space
that lets those courageous, freeing words come out.
Let them out.
Rex Walton
