Evolution's Coming Out of Its Shell

I went to a poetry reading at a bookstore strictly devoted to poetry (and café fare) last week. It was a nook of thing—twenty by twenty shelves of chapbooks and one long table nearly the length of the bookstore. A poet and sitar player performed translation of the Gita Govinda for this degraded age where god is the body—what’s left of it.

I stood in the back, against the bookshelves. A striking woman with a fur lined hat sat toward the front. A striking woman with a fur lined hat sat toward the front but never removed her hat so I was reminded how comfortable privilege can be, how blind.

(Speaking of lost sight, Ohio, you clown show. Get some sunshine. )

A woman wrote a book about being the opposite of a tiger mother—leaving her children behind—the antithesis to loving kids is leaving them if you are a woman. What is the opposite of a tiger mother? Lilith? A deadbeat dad?

I digress and recommend, “Why Men Need to Speak Up About Abortion.” Aaron Traister reports: “I think this may be one of the reasons so many men have trouble talking about this issue. For me, it represents my low point as a human being and as a man: I was a failure, I couldn't take care of myself let alone a child, I couldn't provide for myself, or a wife, or family. My weakness and carelessness resulted in people hurting. I was not a man, I was something so much less than that. Why would anyone ever want to talk about something like that? I recognize that not every man out there has found himself in my situation specifically. I've been told a lot of pro-choice guys don't talk about "women's issues" for fear of saying the wrong thing. All I know is: We're not talking -- as if it doesn't have to do with us, as if it's "their" problem, not ours.”

I still believe we’re waking. I still believe.