Ten Minute Break: Love note to a poet

Of course, like any honest love note, you will never read this.

Like any love note, I hope that you will.

When I first saw you speak, I didn't even know what I was listening for. I knew only hip hop rap rhythms and was just beginning to learn the spoken word iambics, the slow drawn out sentences, the emphasis of words spoken.

Then there you were.

I re-imagine the moment, knowing now what makes you a great poetess. I re-collect the few pieces of memory, and with charcoal, listening to your recorded voice in my ear, I draw the rest:

Frailty is as good a tool as stubborn strength in drawing emotional landscapes. You seemed to balance brash strokes and intricate lines. When you said the word "love," it opened like a flower, finally arriving in the heart, a lost son of language coming home. You were both generous and fiercely defensive. You seemed to inhale and absorb the wisdom of a room, and exhale and exude youth. It was as if you were fighting, and dancing. I hardly knew you. I hardly know you. But your sense of justice is in every word I've heard; constantly searching for right, acknowledging the dark, reasserting your right, leading many distant stars through the dark.