Today, you're 46 years old. You stop to think about this milestone, especially in relation to the week you've had, and everything that was your yesterday (budgets, numbers, grants, and reports). You spent way too much time in your office working on the economics of what you do, especially in relation to politics in 2018 and the fact that a new administration has wiped away funding for public schools, the Connecticut Writing Project, professional development for teachers, and the passion you have for working with immigrant and refugee youth.
Always looking for hope, you volunteered to drive two young men from Ubuntu Academy to take part in a poetry reading in Ridgefield, Connecticut (where the average home is $586,000). You knew that poets in the area wanted the voices of two stellar relocated youth and you said, "I'll get them there. It's the least I can do." You drove 45 minutes and arrived to find out that you were put into the program and, although you thought you were merely an Uber driver, you found a writer's notebook from your days in Louisville in your book bag, and discovered that there's a poem in the pages that you drafted in 2002: "Song For the Lost Boys, Opus I". It was a poem you wrote when you were asked to play with poetry in a summer institute (and you were thinking about the Sudanese men you mentored at the time, one of whom was murdered by a gun for being in the wrong place at the wrong time).
The theme for the evening was "Home", and that poem was drafted while listening to Lady Smith Black Mambazo singing "Homeless" in collaboration with Paul Simon. You wrote the poem to teach the young men while they were studying for the GED in Louisville, Kentucky. You had no idea that 16 years later you'd be leading a National Writing Project site of your own, including the work you do with Ubuntu Academy, and that your own family (who you love with all of your might) would be forever touched by Chitunga, Abu, and Lossine...the world you live with teachers and kids.
That is the Great Whatever. In that, I trust. In that, I love.
In the photograph of the two boys you brought, as an Uber driver (you thought), you see that there are three teachers that came to support the young men. Janet Krauss, an adjunct instructor of English at Fairfield University who has retired, Jan Blevins, a teacher at Bassick High School (and Chitunga's favorite teacher), and Denise Howe, an educator at St. Immaculate in Danbury, Connecticut, who was a part of the Connecticut Writing Project-Fairfield summer institute in 2016, and who read on Twitter that Akbar was sharing a poem in Ridgefield. She drove from Bethel. She came to show support.
You know these three teachers are heroes. You know this because they came on a Thursday night to support the writing of young people, especially those that came to the United States despite incredible obstacles. Although the a current movement is to remove these young men from the United States and to stop them from their American Dreams, you focus on the teachers - you know they are amazing human beings who will never be rewarded for the excellence they bring American society. They, like these young men who came to the reading, have been demonized by leadership in this nation and scapegoated.
They are what makes this nation beautiful. The boys and these teachers are my inspiration.
These young men and the three teachers are the greatest birthday present I could give myself and that is why I wanted to be at the poetry reading last night. I knew I needed to believe in goodness once again. It was a present to myself and, because of them, I'm rejuvenated. And, yes, Akbaru taped me being put on the spot at the Mic. The poem was partially caught by him and I am thankful.
God Bless the World. God Bless everyone who is works towards love and hope.
You know there's a lot of work to accomplish today and you need to get to your office to get it done. You have one life. One hope. And only one faith that the world is supposed to be a much better place than it actually is. That is your Great Whatever. You love / to believe/ in hope.
Here's to hope and a belief that humans can change.
Bryan
No comments:
Post a Comment