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This morning it was fluency,
the title of a poem I found in a book
I laid aside so I could write this down and find
myself inside generous syllables rippling along
waters leading somewhere hopeful I am sure
like a readiness of well-being or forgiveness, and just now
the face of the woman who had wronged me bitterly
came to my mind and in place of my common anger
this time I felt only the residue of her own wounding
and my heart, its jagged edges closer to smooth.

But the movie would be stronger if it skipped the metaphysical realm and just stayed put in Queens.

Unspecific guilt
(He chalked it up to old age)
Pursued him full tilt,

As storm winds bear down
On the defenseless outskirts
Of a struggling town

Miles from anywhere.
Not something he talked about.
No cause for despair:

Sins, sure, although none
Outside the ordinary,
Things most all have done.

January day,
Late afternoon, cold, windy,
Sun sinking away—

Too late now to change.
The thought hit hard. First, panic.
Then, a flood of strange

Ricardo Levins Morales is an organizer, workshop leader, and social justice strategist. He describes himself as a “healer and trickster organizer disguised as an artist.” One appreciator has called him “a litmus test of conscience.” Born in Puerto Rico, Morales moved as a young boy to Chicago, where he saw injustice, oppression, and Black and Brown communities harmed by White privilege. It was there he learned the work of organizing, influenced especially by the work of his mother. He recently wrote about her on his website:

Out of the wilderness came this prophet of fire
and repentance, his voice a flame igniting
souls out of darkness to witness the Messiah.
Wherever he went bonfires reddened the night air.

He wore a tunic of camel hair, and a rope
cincture binding unruly flesh from
appetite; he lived on locusts and burr-
nested cones. When he entered the Jordan