MOTION

We had a thunderstorm in Oakland this afternoon. I walked the hills in the wild dance of sky and wind and water and trees and flying magnolia petals and plum blossoms. Everything alive, in beautiful motion, and when I came home, words spilled out of me like rain.

I’ve been exploring movement in the past weeks in a collaborative process with dancer-choreographer, Sue-Li Jue. Sadly, I’ve had to halt the collaboration, due to work pressures and carpal tunnel flare-ups (if you were planning to come to the Open Process on March 12th, please note that it’s cancelled). But I’ve gained new insights into the creative energy of movement, not to mention a whole new level of respect for what it takes to make dance. If, as Adrienne Rich wrote, “each poem is a breaking of silence”, then each poem is also a breaking of stillness, a putting into motion. Poetry works when it moves me, to a different place from where I began. The movement is as physical as it is emotional; our body chemistry changes when we feel deeply, our mental circuits are rewired.