As we walk our way into & thru another dispensation of the capitalist disarrangement of the hueman presence here on our Mother Planet, we must ask ourselves: Is this the natural order of things unfolding deep within my core? Is this I see outside the borders of my skin the order of Spirit—that substance that fills my lungs, fuels my heart, & constitutes All Being—& the wave I must ride to its inevitable conclusion? Or, is this single cell that I Am in the body of Whatis, agent endowed with feeling & mind to communicate to other cells the pulse & potentiality to stem this course, redirecting it back to the Natural Order of our Mother Planet?

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Back home, again, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, after 3½ on tour in Ithaca, New York, Boston & Framingham, Massachusetts, the second & third legs of the tour. Engagements in each location were magical; there were even a few warm weather days as we traveled.

The space, atmospherics, & vibration in each of he 9 venues was unique & each gathering of people had its special moments. Magical, improvisational, freejazz communication locked in the mment, & the people enspirited, giving & taking with the Poetz. Whether a 10-year old playing clavé on an agogo bell; an elder’s challenge to me declining breakfast, or the same Sister insistently questioning my family & spiritual connections. Special was written everywhere. With the two Poetz presenting with me at Buffalo Street Books, the people’s co-op bookstore; with a young woman’s hug following her Ancestors’ prompting to enter the bookstore (where she had no intention of going) because there was something there for her. At Durland Alternatives Library at Cornell, a Brother released from prison slightly more than a year after spending 39 years incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, presenting his work at his first public reading. An accompanying Sister Poet, at the same venue, who recently relocated after the California Paradise fire destroyed her home & town. Talk of relationship, family, self & societal reflection, & vulnerability freely exposed at a table around which sat formerly incarcerated men & family members of those still doing time on the otherside of the wall. Children, Elders, Poetz, the people gathered, gathering & giving—OGT25 is making connections & forging relationships, inspiring collective vision & promoting self-reflection & local collective action.

Magic—that which is known but cannot be articulated, felt but cannot be measured, seen & heard but cannot be comprehended. The language & symbols of the heart.

We’re learning from the people as we go. Out here in other people’s towns & cities, we’re working to patch-in the missing necessities for communicating more effectively the more immediate & meaningful practical dimensions of the tour thru photo & video documentation. There’ll be greater attention paid to this as we sojourn to Cleveland, Comer, Georgia, & Washington, DC, then on to the West Coast. In Ithaca I met a documentary filmmaker who put me on to a video setup that would work well.

From Ithaca, we traveled east to Framingham & Boston, gathering on April 4th, the 57th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. At the Community Church of Boston, we read with fellow Poet Mark Burrows. Mark is a Rilke scholar & exceptional Poet. The Boston & Framingham presentations were arranged & coordinated by Willie Sordillo, who with Doug Rich are the Tinnitus Brothers. who musically interpreted the poems.

Since its founding in 1920, the Community Church of Boston has been an active peace and justice assembly, a free pulpit in action, a non-sectarian, human-centered congregation with a rich and dynamic community life and a renowned history. Dean Stevens leads the assembly at CCB, which regularly hosts well-known activists, academics, & thought leaders for the Sunday services. CCB is a congregation where resistance is appreciated, understood, & supported. This Chiapis poster was hanging on a wall in the CCB.

Opening that gathering, after our regular ritual invocation of the Ancestors, I read trees for my garden written in 1968 while on death row. The poem commemorates the 1967 police killings & abuse at the Algiers Motel in Detroit, during the 12^th Street Uprising, & the April 4th, ’68 assassination of Dr. King. The air was electric, the music was on time, in time, & those in attendance were locked in & rising in the spiraling vibrations.

The music of the poetry blended seamlessly with the sax & upr the ight bass. The 90-minutes of freejazz before opening the give & take with those assembled sped by. During tthe Q&A, we asked the people, What did you hear? Answers went deep. There was talk of spirits, vibrations, conversation without words, & the musical flowering of everything!

Sundays offering was at the Open Spirit Center in Framingham. The Tinnitus Brothers, again, were there to back the Poetz. This presentation was the bomb! I worled with Reason Bring, a Framingham freejazz frestyle HipHop Poet of the first-order. From the opening bass to the closings harmonies the poetik rendering & musical interpretations were of one accord. Every misstep converted to a further extension of the unfolding magic. At the end there was the simplest, purest silence.

Open Spirit is a multi-faith congregation intentionally celebrating & deepening understanding of our diverse spiritual and cultural backgrounds to enable healing of mind, body, spirit, and Earth, & to inspire in people the courage to transform our lives and our communities.

Our creative quartet certainly experienced that openness & deepening. The rooted stump pictured here is outside the entrance to the Center, & is a fitting representation of the deep roots invoked during the afternoon.

Peace, be still!