Issue 530 | The Sun Magazine

February 2020

Readers Write

Bravery

Facing the police, facing your parents, facing the truth

By Our Readers
One Nation, Indivisible

February 2020

Featuring Sue Monk Kidd, Michael Meade, Parker J. Palmer, and more.

The Dog-Eared Page

On Foot And On Faith

I did not seem to be walking on the earth. There were no people or even animals around, but every flower, every bush, every tree seemed to wear a halo. There was a light emanation around everything and flecks of gold fell like slanted rain through the air.

By Peace Pilgrim
Quotations

Sunbeams

Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears.

Audre Lorde

The Sun Interview

We Will Be Seen

Tressie McMillan Cottom On Confronting Racism, Sexism, And Classism

We are more comfortable in our culture talking about the distant past. We love black history; it’s black people we don’t like.

By Mark Leviton
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Parade Day

Today is the National Puerto Rican Day Parade. I am watching it on television in Brooklyn while the Puerto Ricans are parading up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

By Robert Lopez
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Train Songs

The breakfast rush was hitting its peak when we learned about the dead woman lying not far from Table Four.

By Erin McReynolds
Fiction

No One Dies Alone

I got the call around 2 AM. I’m surprised I even picked up. “Can you come in?” the voice said. I couldn’t say no. So here I am. Bedside. Hands folded. Lots of silence. Lots of time. Nothing to do but think.

By Robert Brian Mulder
Poetry

After The Reading

a woman walked up and asked how / the young black poet the month before / could shake with such anger during / his reading. Is it really / that bad? It can’t be that bad, / can it?

By Gary Jackson
Poetry

Swimming Lessons

late into california’s indian summer you climb / onto your father’s back    wrap your arms around his neck / and slide into the depths of your grandmother’s / pool

By Brionne Janae