#countercurrent16

This is a poem about death,

the dance in honor of death

and the silence that follows

In this dance,

a shooting star loses its place in this beautiful backdrop of tiny specks of light

a boy shooting to become a star is shot,

and the door to the next realm opens easily,

need not always be that easy, so this

is for the pop and the lock and

the many doors it unlocks. And the rest

is silence. Praise be the body

and how it moves us to be in tune with the rhythm of our lives,

how we dance to celebrate the life in the memories that remain

In this dance, a woman dies and the city stops 

m       o                v i                      n              g

In this poem, a black boy dies

and the city does not. Silence.

Praise the silence & the unease

Praise what moves us to disrupt the silence

The dance goes on

...and the room does not move, holds its breath. Praise

the release,

the letting go, and the holding on. Praise

the invisible hand, how it keeps holding back

even though we are always close to the edge, always close to falling. Praise

the inevitable fall and the crash that follows. Praise the miracle

of our limbs

how we conjure the spirits that sing the contours of our bodies back into life

Praise the beckoning, the sudden jerk, and the still, the slow turn

and the strength to lift up and set down gracefully

Praise the quiet

how it allows us to hear through the deafening silence the whispers of they who would be without a voice, if they did not dance

Let the chorus

of i hear yous echo through this cathedral of bodies

...and the rest is silence, is a dance towards rest.