Death affects people in  various ways. If you are a parent, where does the role you’ve occupied for more than three decades go? Are you still a father (or a mother)?

Last year on Father’s Day, we drove down to Providence and retraced the beginning of Mark’s walk when he left his house on Pleasant Street, setting out on what would be his final walk. A friend of his, James, helped us figure out the steps Mark took as he left his beloved city. A small group of friends and co-workers walked out to a point on the city’s bike walking trail and turned back. We walked nearly 11 miles.

Mark, in addition to being an award-winning poet, activist, and a one-in-a-million son, also collected geography, while passing through places in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania. He reached Zanesville in Ohio. He got on a bus. He’d concocted a plan designed to subvert the coming of winter and what that meant to his bare feet. It was the only way he could come up with for continuing to walk. It seemed like a brilliant idea. Hell, it was a brilliant idea!. How could he know that the Greyhound was taking him south was actually transporting him closer to something dark and tragic waiting for him in Florida’s Panhandle? Continue reading →