I ask for groundedness to embody my body,
to close my eyes and diffuse throughout,
sense-check every curve, every tip,
visualize my heartbeat,
to feel into the limbs that convey me
from spring to spring,
to express thanks to the forces that attack
sundry invaders of lungs and skin;
not to disparage my creatureliness,
not to deny that I
am a living organism that will one day die.
I tend to play
with the gods of the mind,
to dwell in the ethereal,
to dabble in the symbolic,
disregard the metabolic,
as if my sense of what is could be felt
without my flesh and bone.
Sometimes I forget that mind and body
are one, that my sense of I
is not the captain.
I forget that the mileage gained from a book
needn’t replace that earned by foot,
that the dream-ladders I climb in my imagination
are housed in a physical organ,
that love isn’t just an idea,
but is blood vessels constricting
and muscles contracting in the gut.
The palms sweat and the mouth dries
when danger is about;
the body knows before I’ve
had time to think.
From stimuli to senses
to nervous system and brain
to feeling and poetry weaving
to giving back in a looped ribbon,
the body is the gift.
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