if our ears are ripe for listening...5-13-22
Perched poised at her manual typewriter Washington Square, NYC, 2022:
Personal Poem 4 U, by donation
How could I not? She looked to be the same age I was Golden Gate Park, SF, 1969. And the Square was alive with the exact same busting out energy. She gave me this:
And so I sat, surrounded by utter chaos, and penned this:
Poetry for This Grand Little Life
The Square brims with life force,
all peeps called to this promenade.
Pollen & gratitude season the air.
Skateboarder Tap dancer Stroller nanny:
hanging out---ecstasy granted.
I see the old rambling folk, too.
And I know I am one.
Barefoot woman flows smearing
grey chalk on stark paper.
Rail thin black man
a punctuation in staccato shape.
Precise, fluid repetition, homage to the ancestral.
Hawkers for pre-rolls & edibles, everybody hustling.
Dark dudes toking, teenagers huddling.
It’s a show-your-tits replay,
a fashion mandate sparked by chimes of freedom.
Microcosm of the world
every hue & life span & he/she
gathered in the communal
celebrating congruent aliveness
to the beat of bass drum chi.
Each & every one of us wrenched
from hum-drum to Covid
two years wrestling with the norm.
And now…here…spring 2022
this desperate grasp for what used to be
side by side with ephemeral grace,
this present lightness,
this carpe diem wonder
moments fleeting as memory.
Each & every one of us
emerging, blinking, yearning
so dubious of what dormancy has incubated
so fucking ready to revel in it.
I put that pen down, carpe-diemed, danced to that band...the trombone was incredible, the place was on fire, if joy was edible you'd be stuffed with it.
Home today...already dipping into pungent memories of Manhattan, a city that has held my urban heart captive since I was a little kid. Back just in time for Roll, Release, Align tomorrow at 10:00am. Focused on where that heart lives---the rib cage. Let your hands rest there a moment. Feel the breath. Feel the heartbeat. Celebrate you aliveness. Gabrielle energy was abundant in those city streets, so many memories of dancing right there. Sunday morning I'll be playing tunes out in that garden: Sweat Your Prayers. Always ready to move with the peeps in the pulse of this west coast urban heart. Wednesday Waves is back live at Clara---five sessions of Taking More Pleasure before we break 'til September.
Let's move together, create moments as fleeting as memory....❤️Bella