Some Jazz a While Quotes

“as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone”
― Miller Williams, Some Jazz a While: Collected Poems

“Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.”
― Miller Williams, Some Jazz a While: Collected Poems

“We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.”
― Miller Williams, Some Jazz a While: Collected Poems