Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Dance (Gratitude Poem #11)

Good morning family!


This is the dance party of my dreams, aerobic workout of gratitude! To get to dance to the tune of Audre Lorde's poetry with so many loved ones is such a gift!!! I can feel Audre Lorde doing a very shoulder-centric dance of affirmation and I can't wait to dance in person with Gloria Joseph in St. Croix! I am completely excited that ride or die, eternal summerian, profoundly brilliant publisher and cherished friend Jess Hoffman has joined the dance party!



I remember when I first met Jess Hoffman in person. Maybe there is nothing that can make you appreciate the miracle of an anti-racist white feminist more than accidentally visiting the most racist white feminist space that you couldn't imagine. Or maybe I would have appreciated meeting Jess and her amazing embodied love on any sunny or rainy day regardless. Either way Jess's role in my life worth more than the sum of my renewed and transformed faith in editing across difference, and my deepened gratitude for anti-racist white people working actively to transform the communities they love so critically. Being friends, comrades, collaborators, loved ones, sisters, teammates, bandmates, and dance partners with you, Jess (yes I am suddenly shifting the second person to directly address YOU, Jess!) is like a favorite song coming on in the community powered radio of my heart. I think the meaning of our friendship is politically important and has lessons for our community, like the friendship between Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich (if I dare compare us at this young age to two of the greatest poets and teachers ever), but more than that, our relationship is an experience that I treasure. I light up at the sight of you. I feel peace and affirmation from knowing you are out there in the universe reading from the same page I am reading from. I love being alive in community with you!!!!


And for any of you who want to join the dance party...check out: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip



Dance


For Jessica Hoffman


After Audre Lorde’s “Making Love to Concrete”


dance in the particular


one city wide

one city steep

long state breaking off

sleek with squashed statement


you live here

on the scribbled embroidery

of the inescapable


dance in the particular


where well intended bridges

sing whole notes to back pain


invite your own becoming


stretch like a thin girl

not afraid of being wrong

not pretending to be necessary


these shoes for steep

these shoes for wide

walking across love

and wanting to be barefoot


dance in the particular

like you already know


like the desert revelated

baby sprung

email proof-reading

detail divinating

fingertip mapmaking

garden fresh breathing in

twelve year old memory

star tail tracing

summer start

you always were

you are


socialist with your lessons

skylight with your smile

forgiving without giving up


and up and up and up and up


you are

you already are

1 comment:

Lisa said...

I absolutely love this. And you are spot-on with your descript of Ms. Hoffman's impact on the world, relationship, and self. As you wrote so crushingly true -- she's a marvel, a miracle.