My brain got blown at some point this evening. I think it was when I was sitting in SHINDIG, which I was MC'ing, listening to Henri Salonen improvise with Adam Vallance to the latter's grandly simple piano compositions while watching Gytha Lodge's words turn up, projected across the back wall, as she - in turn - improvised a story in response to what she was hearing. That's live literature right there.
So I decided to write a poem in response to what I was watching and listening to. It's another stream-of-consciousness piece (necessarily), but there you go…
It's late, so I can't really tell if this would make sense to anyone who wasn't there as well/ isn't me, but hey…!
_________
Why are you still here?
For the hateful-sweet father groans
In contrary motions,
A evanescent threnody
Echoing in its own silence.
We wonder why bruises feel sweet
When pressed again,
Why salt water tastes inspiring.
It is because we've survived,
And are surviving.
Our choices appear to be:
Shuffling along boardwalks,
Or battling the wracking heave
Of dark oceans;
And either way,
There is the sunset -
Equally distant but gifting different
Perspectives on hope.
We are all driven by beats
Often hypnotic
But heard more clearly some times
Than others.
We are never locked in entirely
There is always a portal
That has (maybe) not been
Thought of before.
Even the instruments we've been given
Can be sounded differently,
Turning corners,
Making water from rock
Fire from water,
Air from fire.
And we will gather companions,
Sometimes only of our own
Imagining,
The safe places from which we stray,
Kites to the world's winds,
Tethered in love.
And forgiveness.
Sail on, dear heart,
Chart the arpeggios of wind
And water, the chords of
Fire and stone.
You are never alone
While our words together linger.
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