What are bodies for, then?
he asked. They give a chance to talk and touch. They let us see and taste, feel, move and make. Make shelter, make gardens. Make music.
No matter how it looks, young or old, dressed
in stockings or a saree, healthy or diseased, smooth or wrinkled, beautiful or plain.
Life is a series of heartbeats, and each one is an opportunity, an invitation to connect with one another. You’ll see it plainly when
that other heart has stopped.
That’s true, she answered, but there is more.
A body comes from another one, don’t forget.
A breast is for nurturing, too.
Bodies are not just for sharing,
a body is a portal too, for bringing life.
And life is not merely a sequence of partners or heartbeats, nor just a line of days like beads on a string.
It is a cycle: we arise from life's source, but then we become
its source. A circle of beginning and becoming and begetting.
His string of beads bent into her circle, then,
and her circle formed a bead on a longer string.
Each heartbeat was
an opportunity becoming,
begetting an invitation to
what bodies are for.
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words & image: Steve Wing, Florida (about & more)
