<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Thanks, Larry; good to see you yesterday.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class="">
<div class=""><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”</div><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Wendell Berry</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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<br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jul 11, 2016, at 8:11 AM, Larry Robinson <<a href="mailto:Lrobpoet@sonic.net" class="">Lrobpoet@sonic.net</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">@ the Crossroads—A Sudden American Poem</div><div class=""> </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> RIP Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Dallas police</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> officers Lorne Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith,</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa—and all</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> their families. And to all those injured.</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> </i></span></div><div class=""> </div><div class=""> Let us celebrate the lives of all</div><div class="">As we reflect & pray & meditate on their brutal deaths</div><div class="">Let us celebrate those who marched at night who spoke of peace</div><div class="">& chanted Black Lives Matter</div><div class="">Let us celebrate the officers dressed in Blues ready to protect </div><div class="">Let us know the departed as we did not know them before—their faces,</div><div class="">Bodies, names—what they loved, their words, the stories they often spoke</div><div class="">Before we return to the usual business of our days, let us know their lives intimately</div><div class="">Let us take this moment & impossible as this may sound—let us find </div><div class="">The beauty in their lives in the midst of their sudden & never imagined vanishing</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Let us consider the Dallas shooter—what made him</div><div class=""> what happened in Afghanistan</div><div class=""> what</div><div class=""> flames burned inside</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">(Who was that man in Baton Rouge with a red shirt selling CDs in the parking lot</div><div class="">Who was that man in Minnesota toppled on the car seat with a perforated arm </div><div class="">& a continent-shaped flood of blood on his white T who was</div><div class="">That man prone & gone by the night pillar of El Centro College in Dallas)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This could be the first step </div><div class=""> in the new evaluation of our society This could be</div><div class=""> the first step of all of our lives</div><div class=""> </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Juan Felipe Herrera</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(Juan Felipe Herrera is America’s Poet Laureate)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">
<div class=""><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class="">“Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”</div><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Wendell Berry</div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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