*****light requires no medium for its propagation*****

The Power Table

You, lying across the wide bed, vertical,
I, horizontal,

you, I, in a green field two green paths
flowered with xxxx's and xxxx's

you, I, lined inside
with pre-historic quarrels

old black cuts
in a wooden kitchen table

the table where you sit down with your older brothers
the table where things get settled once & for all

the cow's hip shaved down to the brand
her body divided into zones

Yes I am standing in the doorway
yes my softness & my hardness are filled with a secret light,

but i want world-light
and this-world company.

"That's what makes you a human being---that willingness to sing another one free."

The power of storytelling is exactly this: to bridge the gaps where everything else has crumbled.

[Asked to consider the role of the writer, Mr. Lopez has said],

"I like to use the word isumatug. It’s of eastern Arctic Eskimo dialect and refers to the storyteller, meaning ‘the person who creates the atmosphere in which wisdom reveals itself.’ I think that’s the writer’s job. It’s not to be brilliant, or to be the person who always knows, but… to be the one who recognizes the patterns that remind us of our obligations and our dreams.”