The world belongs primarily to the dead, and we only rent it from them for a little while. They created it, they wrote its literature and its songs, and they are deeply invested in how children are treated, because the children are the ones who will keep it going. The idea that each of us has the right to change everything is a deep insult to them.
When a father, absent during the day, returns home at six, his children receive only his temperament, not his teaching.
One out of three black men are in the criminal justice system in some form. Their despair is beginning to resonate through the entire culture; that is why suburban children want rap music.
The ancestors are very much invested in the children, because the children are the ones who are going to continue the world that the ancestors made.
When an elder turns to face the dead, that means he turns away from facing the future and his own retirement in Phoenix, let's say. He turns and finds himself facing the children.
I wanted to spend all my time writing poetry. But when I had children I couldn't do that anymore.
