Keep on running toward fear

I mentioned in a post earlier today that I'm excited and scared. It will probably be a recurring theme in the next 11 days.

But my thoughts on fear at this point can best be summed up by a pervious post, the title of a book by Haki Madhubuti, one of my favorite poets: Run Toward Fear. I may be afraid. I may wonder if I can go the whole way in the early June heat. But I'm running the race.

Anwyway, here's a poem from that book, Run Toward Fear:

Heart Work

Art has its own answers and name,
has beauty, insight and great questions too.
the poem is the unheard inquiry,
a foreign language in English and off rhyme
torturously taught by P.E. teachers
to a population bred on commercials and war games,
where the loud aesthetic is the nation's weapon
limited only by zeros on its dollar bills.
You go substratum to decipher
the secrets of poets, musicians and hand painters.
Poetry has blanketed your heart and
your heart is like that of "Lincoln West," "Strong Men" and "Mollie Means"
running alone on A Street in Bronzeville and Southern black roads.



For the teachers of poetry.