#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Moments before police fatally shot Daunte Wright during a traffic stop Sunday in a Minneapolis suburb, he called his mother and told her he'd been pulled over for hanging air fresheners from his rearview mirror.
It's not clear how much of a role the air fresheners played in the traffic stop. Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon told reporters Monday that Wright was originally pulled over for an expired tag and that when officers approached his car, they saw an item hanging from the rearview mirror.
~ CNN
I woke before dawn to have a head start on a busy day. I prepped for my Farm Pond Writer’s webinar, and then walked in the cool morning to the river. Another dry day, with near certainty of rain the next two days. I am looking forward to the rain and walking in it. Today, there is a pure blue sky and I walk to the swamp and back to see what is new. But it’s later, in the afternoon, after my webinar, that I truly experience the bursting of spring. I drive to the city! I have put on a nice outfit and printed my poem and I am heading out into an actual engagement with the wider world–in person. The organizers of the Mass. Poetry Student Day of Poetry program coming up are filming the poets involved reading one poem and answering two questions. I have chosen my poem, Kettled, written last summer about learning to swim in Farm Pond. Mass. Poetry’s office is in the Fort Point area of Boston. It’s a beautiful blue sky day to be in the city. There are three humans in the Mass. Poetry office, and I read my poem well, and we’re done quickly. I walk the neighborhood a bit before heading home. A small park with trees in full bloom. Perhaps magnolia? They are just past peak bloom. I am so happy to be in the city with the poem of swimming on my breath, and the container of daffodils and pussy willows is so cheerful. All the way home in the sunshine I feel a taste of some normalcy returning, realizing there is traffic in the world and I can encounter it with patience and gratitude. Home, and just time for a quick dinner before running my Aim for Astonishing webinar, which is deep and cheerful, and the writing and sharing so nourishing. There are charges announced against the officer who shot Daunte Wright at a traffic stop because of driving while black.
