Guest Post from Claire @ Bicoastally

Hello, dear friends of Micaela, this is Claire from Bicoastally.  Although I miss Micaela's regular blog posts, it's been so fun reading everyone's guest posts!  By now you know that Micaela asked us to share our hearts in this sweet format:


"With as much creativity as you can muster, show your heart in: a picture, a poem, a song (or piece of music), a quote, an item of clothing, and a place."


So as tempted as I am to write about the breakfast I had with Micaela and Max in Georgia last week (I love her even more in person!) , I will oblige and share my heart:

A picture:

Deep in my heart is my passion for ending capital punishment, prison reform, and prison education.  I've been teaching creative writing in prisons for years, involved with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, and have been outside San Quentin at every execution that has taken place here since I moved to California.  I took this picture outside the prison gates at the vigil before the execution of Clarence Ray Allen in January of 2006.  Although the execution did go through, it was inspiring to see all the people rallying to put an end to injustice.

A poem:
(I studied creative writing in college and went to graduate school for a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Writing/Poetry, so picking just one poem is an extremely difficult task for me!  but here's my best try)


excerpt from The City in Which I Love You by Li-Young Lee:

And when, in the city in which I love you, even my most excellent song goes unanswered, and I mount the scabbed streets, the long shouts of avenues, and tunnel sunken night in search of you . . . That I negotiate fog, bituminous rain rining like teeth into the beggar's tin, or two men jackaling a third in some alley weirdly lit by a couch on fire, that I drag my extinction in search of you . . . Past the guarded schoolyards, the boarded-up churches, swastikaed synagogues, defended houses of worship, past newspapered windows of tenements, along the violated, the prosecuted citizenry, throughout this storied, buttressed, scavenged, policed city I call home, in which I am a guest . . . a bruise, blue in the muscle, you impinge upon me. As bone hugs the ache home, so I'm vexed to love you, your body the shape of returns, your hair a torso of light, your heat I must have, your opening I'd eat, each moment of that soft-finned fruit, inverted fountain in which I don't see me. I feel like this is Li-Young Lee's swan song.  Please google & read the entire poem--every bit of it is as beautiful as this excerpt.  Gives me the shivers. A song: A quote: "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."                                                            (Anais Nin) An item of clothing:                     from I love big, bold scarves.  And I live in San Francisco, so they're pretty much always weather-appropriate. ♥ A place: from This is Baker Beach in San Francisco . . . notice it is very similar to the picture I took that's in my blog header.  The beach is so very beautiful, sits among cliffs and under the Golden Gate Bridge, and it soothes my soul every time I go there.  Oceans in general are where my heart belongs, but this peace of the Pacific, in particular, calms me. :) Thank you for having me, and hurry back, Micaela!