I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

And this is the slowdown.

When I stand in the grocery store line, I often wonder what the person just ahead is thinking. Or the stranger seated next to me at the symphony alone, silently flipping through the

playbill. or my graduate student who I still cannot read,

even after eight weeks of intense debate around a seminar table.

I am perennially intrigued by people's inner reality.

I guess pets too, but let's stick with humans. Even getting to know ourselves is a steadfast journey, one of varying obstacles and hopefully fruitful

waystations.

The philosopher Socrates said,

know thyself.

But do we ever really arrive at that knowledge?

Do we ever gain a full understanding of our needs of what motivates us at any given moment?

And should the quest always lean toward wisdom? The unspoken terrain of the human heart and mind is limitless.

Most of who we are goes unexplored, even by those active in our lives, unless we grant special access.

This is one of the reasons why close friends and coworkers know us better sometimes than our immediate family.

We can be like planets orbiting each other and the dark matter between us is that space we traverse in order to feel connected, sustained, understood.

Which is why I turn to poetry.

The late poet Donald Hall said that a poem is one inside talking to another inside. We live chiefly in our minds, but poetry allows us to make public our most intimate thoughts.

Our true feelings struggle to find expression. Our dream Our dreams are evolved.

Our dreams are avowalve.

But poetry too acts as a channel by which we begin to hear ourselves and hear others.

The speaker in today's poem sees the world around them

...