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.
----
words & image: Steve Wing, Florida (about & more)
2 comments:
My gosh. I just discovered this. So beautiful, melancholic, and touching. Brings tears to my eyes, as I contemplate bodies and their role in the journey of life.
Your words about wrinkled bodies, aging bodies, the passage of time, bring to mind the growing fear of these things, as expressed to me recently by a person I know who got married here in my country last week. Almost 200 people attended the reception. Two days later, in a telephone call, this person said to me: "All the women there--except for you and one other woman--get regular injections of botox. Lots of the men who were there get it too."
thanks, karyn.
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