EVERY RELATIONSHIP IS AN ORNAMENT TO OUR BECOMING
Missive #61 - Transcribed Poetic Dictation with Vision Accompaniment
[Here we are. In a world at once changed and again unchanged. Calvin and I have returned from a weeklong family pilgrimage to England, one of our motherlands. It was my first time getting to walk the same streets generations of my ancestors would have known and walked. Sitting in places that have held structured ceremonial worship for thousands of years. On the 6th we contributed ourselves to a bed of choral evensong at St. Paul’s, where the celebrant led us in offering prayers to America, to her leaders. That all our decisions may ultimately lead us collectively to a world of greater peace, greater prosperity, more rooted and accessible joys for all, at all levels. Those of us who listen in the deepest stillnesses can still feel the sweet rumblings of this world, its incessance. The way there may be unknown, but it is sure. May all our ways be blessed and all our boats sturdy, ready for the waves to come~] Received 11/8/24 | 1:15-1:30pm
Listen to the Recitation:
EVERY RELATIONSHIP IS AN ORNAMENT TO OUR BECOMING
We all accessorize eachother:
Heels, bag, bracelet, crown
Shirt, shoes, cap, and gown
Undergarments and overcoats
Rings and ringmails, bejeweled and studded
Pressed leathers and boiled wool
Flax woven into linen, layered by color
Texture and temperature, weight
Falling from shoulders, shining tresses
Shaven off and swept up, regrown
To never cut again. Some sacrifices
Need only be made once, to convey
To the gods of our self our inner intent
To pave one's content with blessed brick
And interlaying of stone, as if melted together
Fit without sediment, tailored to the seams
Infrared and unfrayed, the tassels falling
Bouncing with every sway of step, sound
Lingering in the crevices of niche, the crook
Of knee, the furl of an elbow creased, bent
Out of shape, we are shapen anew
By the friends we meet and drape about our form
We treat them kindly and wear them gently,
Save those who are of a rougher make, made
To be worn dirty, thunder to pavement, the billowing
Of storm's gale, whipping and ripping the day
Across a stray solemnity, torn to joy and contention
We are all made to be worn, by one another
Making up every aesthetic, known and unknown
Styles, matched and rematched, pre-laired and
Paired, removed and replaced, worn again
In a familiar outfit, then repurposed for one
Never worn before, yet to be shown, put on display
For our relationships are public objects, regardless
Of whether or not we wear them out
We wear each other out, to parties and to dust
To torn seams and sewn patches, holes become
Colorful flower stars, embroidered details
Where wounds used to be, blooming
Prides, proudly popping, grabbing loose eyes
For a look, we labor so for a look, each way about it
We look and are looked upon
Sulis Minerva's gray eyes, boiling skies over
Turbulent oceans, calmly and tactfully watching
Over and beyond the fray, to the immaculate
We swim in her sea; her spear of wisdom
Reminds us of its point, of the sharpness
Of insight, far-reaching and piercing through
Layers upon layers; none can impede her
Well-timed strike, the flash of an ankle heel
Clapping the stone floor of the aged abbey, not yet
Lost to time, still standing firm, tall amidst the weathers
Amidst raging tempesta, her stormy sentence
Not yet damning, but testing us, testing our
Candor, our capacity to hold firm the vision
Of the more beautiful, more peaceful, more just
World, which is here, in our relationships, in our
Outfits, in our adornments, in the stylized steps
We take to move forward, boldly, into the new day.
