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Dear Lee, I just want to tell you, I went to hear Persian poetry tonight –– the first night you were dead –– and as they read Hafez’ poetry of revolution, freedom and of love I saw picture after picture of the streets of Tehran, people marching, waving signs –– arms, wrists, fingers and heads, sometimes their whole bodies wrapped in green cloths signifying their determination to recapture their tradition and put it into the service of freedom and justice. And I thought of the many streets where you walked in your dedication to justice and to love, where you brought those stubborn candles to relight them again and again despite the wind’s attempts to quench them –– the streets of the Philippines, of El Salvador, every street where the dispossessed struggle for justice. I remember the streets of Port au Prince where we saw the people in their hope repair bicycles with scraps from the trash heap build trailers from axles of old cars and create from cinder blocks a one room school house, where President Aristide’s picture hung beside a simple painted blackboard like the ones our grandmothers must have written on. Those streets, and the streets of San Francisco, Fort Benning, Oakland, Livermore and Hayward all these streets mourn your absence but still your footsteps echo there your witnessing eyes record the story of the struggle you bring to share. with love, |