Poet Anis Mojgani draws out the play in the spoken word. The beat goes on in this original poem for PlayTime.
I reflected some on what play as an idea was/is to me, how I might define it and recognize its presence in me, and this brief list was penned:
Play
– movement without tangible/tactile purpose
– exercise for the imagination
– the gut’s response to the soul’s joyous language
– builds on top of the arrival of a good feeling
– what the body uses its exterior to say back to the music that is heard only within its interior
And with those thoughts present in my thoughts, began writing.
What Loves Me Enough
what loves me enough
to come for no reason but to move itself through me
from the interior world into the exterior one
to make itself known from me being in both
when standing
in a field
I then too
am field
in me
the field is a wide kingdom
inside the kingdom I am
what does the empty grass sound like
what is the song that plays
what passes
between the tree and its leaves
causing it to become an instrument?
what plays it?
the sky?
what is playing me?
in what ways do I as well become an instrument for the invisible musicians?
and what is the music that moves through me?
is it built of notes and measures?
maybe neither
or maybe both in a different form of song
the orchard an orchestra
the way my arm moves
when pulled by something unseen
causing a picture to appear
causing a poem to become
causing a laugh of the heart to be heard
what plays the laugh out of my love
what gives it a shadow
what is the taste in my mouth that comes from climbing the branches
from coloring a blank space
with a crayon
a marker
a paintbrush
my hands
my feet
my body
dancing
to a sound or none
jump over
something just because
I’m bigger than it
jump over something
just because
it is bigger than me
and my feet need to show me how much like wings they can be
at which point does skipping down the street stop
at which point did I begin to feel that whistling the sound of my inside is only for a child to make
why not the whistle
why not the skip
at which point
does it stop that which my body and being are saying
to one another
is there a time in which
we say back
shhhhhhh
quiet
that part of time that is not of me
not now
me and my being
have things to do
even if
we are
doing
nothing
my job is not to find
the reason for this
but to simply
breathe it forth
to move without purpose
outside of
how my body responds
to the most immediate wind
which seeks to speak
to my heart
seeks to enter into me
a soundless music
picking up a rock
I feel not its weight
but my own
I do not wish definition given
to that which is given
what the gift is
does not matter so much
as that the gift is a thing giving itself to someone
what word inside the universe loves me enough
to give itself to me
by attempting to give it a shape
outside of how my brain and my heart wish
to play with one another
to bridge the space that stretches between their shapes
all our dark sweet cherry
the early robins
hold hands
with the unseen zebra
or the rain purpling over the rooftop
the invisible three armed violin player
climbing into the moon
winking back at me
a secret
I will not pass aloud
but will
nonetheless
still give away
(Image credits: Photo by Allison White/PEM.)
