Maybe four years old, his black hair was shorn short, except for one long braid that erupted from his head like a floppy antennae. When he saw me he immediately exclaimed “bonjour!” then blew me a kiss and wrapped his gleaming dark eyes around my heart.
So it was the twilight of their love we want you to be familiar with, when a great calm washed across their days, and the old couple had come to relish each passing hour…
This past year, I co-created BLOOM and LUMINOUS, two interactive, site-specific Hudson Valley performances under the umbrella of Circle Creative Collective.
It is winter
And if you care to notice,
The naked branches brandish tight buds in their seemingly empty little fists
I felt some fluff on a grey stalk
Held it with awakened fingers
Only to find moisture there, a
Soft vibration of aliveness
Ouroboros, this ancient symbol of life, death, and rebirth spans cultures and time. It embodies what LUMINOUS was and also what Circle has been and is becoming.
I am standing at the edge of morning. A slender line of indigo runs parallel with the snaking Shawangunk Kill River here, illuminating the trees in the place where Water meets Land.
My athletic 12-year-old niece tells me absently mid-air, looking down, “I hate my feet; they’re so ugly,” while wiggling ten perfectly adorable toes.
I handed them to her in a see-through sleeve of cellophane, flourished with a slender satin bow. Even without abandoning the sash of purple or thin outer garment, one could plainly see their inner ruddiness and wild, unexpressed containment.
What can my puny form offer
To those who’ve forgotten
That every child is all our children
For now, only my grief
Through this small open throat
My imperfections
Tears and a warbled song
For the wee ones with their hollowed eyes
And spines like swollen pearls