It's a long time since I have properly posted in here, but soon I am going to be in here all the time. Classes start soon! However, right now I am in Texas at a conference. I made my presentation about my students' blogs, and it was a lot of fun. I have met some really great people since I got here, and it has been quite inspiring hearing about all the work that teachers are doing all around the world. I went to two presentation about social justice, peace and global issues. There are a lot of classes doing stuff similar to what we are doing in Kansai Gaidai. I think there is hope for the world yet!

Anyway, I know I posted this poem about a year ago, but I thought I would put it up here again. It's the poem that I wrote about Jerusalem.

Jerusalem

I never asked to love you
With your stones soaked in blood
And fantastic dreams of peace
That can only cause war

If I had known
That your embrace
would have destroyed me
Perhaps I would have refused the bliss
That blinded my reality
Clouded my consciousness
With unrealized fantasies
Of temples and rocks

That mean everything
That mean nothing
That are now part of me
The part I cannot get rid of
The part that clogs my heart

With choked disappointments
That suffocate its beating
With exponential intensity
That increases with each torn body
The mangled wrecks of lives
Sacrificed again and again
On an alter of madness
To which you have compelled me to worship
With a greed that belies your beauty

The beauty that drew me in
And now will not let go
Until we are all destroyed
Or your promise comes true

by Scott Roy Douglas, 2001.

here we go again