Dying/broken/forgiven.... now I begin

Born: 17-06-56....gemini.... monkey
re-born: 3-09-80
born again\found: 14-04-08
other notable dates: 10-03-68; 03-09-87; 23-03-96;
1-05-98; 31-01-02; 5-04-04

Interests: movement, stressed/transgressive embodiment, lived experience (body\space\time\relation)
expression ( word, dance, text, image, story, music, poetics)
learning, yielding......

Hopes for the blog:
offer up the wild intersectedness of lived experience and engage others in creative, expressive, perhaps irreverant, hopefully playful, and respectful encounters....
enact kindness
create moments of pause for disclosure, discovery, stillness

Friday, June 19, 2009

the simplest expression of fragility

gulls swoop so dangerously close
Milly can look them in the eye
a testimony to the discipline of barely there
stillness
on her back
burrowed into the dingy sand
the April day seems warm enough
disguising the bite, gust and snap

the birds know better
Milly feels the swing of sky swoop
vertigo precedes a softening of sound
& time
maybe they're the same thing
She wonders about how that works
that slow motion loss of sound thing
the legacy of the stone cold saints

she's got no business complaining
by now she's not only excavated those bones,
she's burned them
the dark, horrific stench of black sin filling her
nose and eyes
for months, maybe years
there's that time thing again

is this how it will always--or never --be?
the simplest expression of fragility
a pathetic descent into strange, unnerving smallness
she wonders... Is this what happens
when others speak their mundane devastations
their little disappoints and despairs
surely cannot be all that different from hers
how would she know
deep knowing (is/a) feeling at home with feeling
wondering always wondering if this is how others feel
if asking is further evidence
she has already
said too much

7 comments:

  1. Milly first appears in a post on January 16 ...she is the shy girl in the strange plaid coat; there is another post about her on March 19, and you can see that March 19 post ( St.Anthony) and other references to the shy girl in the strange plaid coat at Jon's wonderful collaborative exploration: beckettadaptation.blogspot.com. Milly is a character who allows me to explore darkness and hope in ways that are authentic and helpful.

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  2. at the head of a road one can only feel what one feels, it is further down that one begins to wonder if others feel the same thing, this point is at the crossroads of indifference and empathy streets.

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  3. why is milly so blue?
    what could she do
    what sin could she commit
    that hasn't already been writ
    in books both old and new?

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  4. Others feel alone too, many of the others.

    No matter how bad you feel the pain will fade and eventually disappear. Just let it go, don't fear.

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  5. "if asking is further evidence
    she has already
    said too much"

    Great close. Bravo!

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  6. WM & Mariana-- thank you for these empathetic and thoughtful responses...
    Timmy -- your poem has instigated a seep that will appear in the next post...thanks
    Gerry-- I am happy with it, too. Sometimes I need everything that precedes the close to make the close appear;thanks.

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  7. Moving, thought-provoking, feeling-generating and -remembering: great post, thank you.

    :)

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