Wash your hands after reading this poem
He sees it, the one struggling, sees invitation, imagination, a courage lab. A call to this sacred mess to hold the struggling to hold off hole up let up a call inward to our cobwebs under the stairs. Masonry giving way at the base. Don’t get me wrong. My fear has legs. Someone I love in quarantine with cough. Another stranded. What part of being in step is sitting still? Corona virus conference canceled due to Corona virus. Maybe scary empires scare. Does that offend you? These cracks aren’t new. Maybe no small part is how we move. I implicate myself here too, trying to decolonize my rammy. You can’t hold water in your hands offered the Elder. There is no safety you said once. I couldn’t see that as invitation in time. Or time as I’ve known and kept it.
Nanci Lee is a poet and adult educator living in Kjipuktuk and Tatamagouche. This poem was a cobbling of courage around COVID-19. Who knew the heartbreak could deepen. She recently joined the Tatamagouche Centre finding it to be a community committed to learning, healing and embodied organizing. www.nancilee.ca(http://www.nancilee.ca/
Leya Evelyn is an artist living in Kjipuktuk. She moved to Nova Scotia in 1984 after over two decades in New York. Her abstract paintings are about explorations, possibilities, imaginings and openings. Mainly, she paints. It is all about communication, even without words. www.leyaevelyn.com .
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Nanci, I really admire this poem! Thank you for writing it!
I live in Truro, perhaps when the virus is over I can have you come over to read at my festival, RiverWords!
Thank you Chad. Appreciate that. I’d love to. I haven’t made it to stay yet in Tatamagouche with all that’s happened but I will be living between K’jipuktuk and Tata so Truro is pretty much perfectly in the middle. 🙂
Are you a poet? Would love to read some of your work too. nanci@tatacentre.com