A Poem Inspired by Dance and Hoop Path

Farren Square 2009 Photo by Ester Malzahn

This poem came coursing through me at the end of the first day of hoop dance workshops with JL Baxter of Hoop Path, and I shared it with all 46 other dancers at the end of the third and final day. My hoop is my temple, and dancing is my prayer. It felt powerful to be in a room with 46 artists and dancers, dancing for the love of movement and the freedom of expectation.


My Ribs

I felt my ribs
          break     open
two birds were freed.
My heart is healed
by the teal tears
of my reflection.

The earth     holds me.

My fingers are roots my    h a i r
stretches  l o n g   like  b r a n c h e s
Song and soot of dirty sweat

          I ache

to be free
of these ribs

          I quake

at the whisper
of the air
of the linger.

The earth     holds me.

Healed by teal tears
the girth of me
feels my ribs
       
          break     open

and two birds were freed
inside my heart

-Farren

You may be interested in my Other Poems including:

"Scientific Method"

"Allowed Hibernating"

and

A Poem inspired by Burning Man.

Allowed Hibernating

Aren't I northern mammal,
of northern mammals who came from
northern mammals before them?
Aren't I borne
of centuries of darkness,
a diet of
salty fish and snow and snow
and wind and rains?

And like northern mammals,
I make a warm cave.
I build a warm nest, tangled so
imperfectly and too tight and too loose
but warm and bright and welcoming.

Maybe
I am a snowshoe hare, my eyes vigilant
but ready and calm.

I tear the soft fur from my belly.

I can hear the melting snow ringing
in my long ears, I
can feel the ground thaw
underneath my old feet.

I can hear the greens return.
I can stay in my nest 'til then.




-F

The quick step of a toddler.

There was a time in your childhood that your father played music in a band. He sits with you, in the bathroom while you play in the tub, and plays guitar softly. Or sometimes he plugs his bass guitar into his amp and grooves a bath-time beat for you.

Every now and then I can hear him, stopping to help you keep water in the tub, congratulating you on your latest watery concoction, a bucket full of water and toys.

You are one year and four months old and you are so alive. It is springtime, almost, we can feel it if we breathe in deep at the right time of day. Trees have buds, but are holding their breath. The days tumble by with the quick step of a toddler learning to use his feet and balance. And you love to stomp around, you've only just mastered the vertical existence, and already you see the power and potential in this independence.

Best Buds

You say things like no! And oh oh, mournfully, of course. You use more and again to get what you need. You know how to sign sleep when you are tired, help when you are frustrated, and of course milk, well, anytime, really.  You say car! and point out our low front windows at neighbourhood traffic. You say car! and push around any toy that rolls saying brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbbrr. You build towers out of blocks, not just knock them down. You ask me to turn the music on in the morning and then you dance until nap.

 When you laugh, when you are simply delighted, you throw your head back and exclaim HA! You don't ever want to hold anyone's hand. You are never still enough for a really crisp photograph anymore, unless you're eating or nursing.

Sometimes it strikes me, it physically stops me in my tracks, how magical you are. How fantastic it is to watch you grow and discover. How un-cussing-believable it is that you came from me, that I get to help you build this experience called life. How big and important that makes me in your eyes, how small and tiny and spec-like it makes me feel in my eyes.

Beautiful magical baby.

This time last year I was much more afraid. Everything scared me, everything. I had to shovel myself out the door, shock myself into being human, into showing you the world. This year I am excited. The world is brimming with possibilities and I want to show you how spectacular and brilliant summer-time can be.

I want to show you bugs and water animals, I want to built forts in the urban forests and picnic in their shade. I want to take you camping and show you lake swimming. I want to dance on the green grass with you under the stars and fire-flies.

What is Burning Man about? I'll tell you.

Yes, I have been to Burning Man. And the number one question I hear is, "What is Burning Man about?"

I'll tell you.

No, Burning Man isn't a giant rave in the desert. Despite what you've heard, it isn't really about music. It isn't about sex or drugs or nudity either.

Burning Man 2009 - Open Playa

It is about people. It is about community. It's about coming together and creating a city void of social status, void of judgement, void of consumerism and greed.

A 3-Story woman made from cables.

It is about pushing ourselves to the limits just to see what we can do. It is about respecting our peers and giving them the space to be and do what makes them happiest. It is about realizing your own personal abundance and gifting the excess to everyone and anyone who happens by. It is the realization that everything we do - a hug, a shared story, a smile, a gin and tonic for a friend - is an experience, a gift of its own right. It's about Art. Or the idea that creativity doesn't live within the boundaries of success and failure.

Yes I made this costume myself.

It is about always striving to be a participant and never just a spectator.

And this year I am staying home. I stayed home last year, too, seven months pregnant and no way in hell was I interested in the physical toll that is living in a tent in a dried up dusty desert-hot lake bed. But my Handsome Mandude wasn't going, either, and I was content in taking a year off.

This year I am not pregnant. I am a Mama. And my Handsome Mandude is venturing down into the desert without me. And he is bringing two of my closest friends.

Yours truly, FireHooping before we lit up The Man

It's true that I could probably go. Other Mamas with babies as young as mine (or younger) find a solid babysitter and make the trip. I'm, personally, not ready to be away from Squeaky D for that long. And I'm breastfeeding and that relationship is more important to me.

And maybe it is possible to bring a baby to Burning Man. But I wouldn't, and I would advise anyone thinking about it not to do it. I'm just not sure it is fair to bring a little person into a world so dusty, hot, overstimulating, borderline dangerous, and overwhelming with no real means of escape. At least not until they can communicate to you about it.


I guess I'm just feeling nostalgic about the whole thing. About the freedom of it all, to be myself and to be fearless about it.  Nostalgic about the people that I've met there, the friendships I have made. The incredible art that people work so hard to drag into the desert for me to climb on, experience, and enjoy.

This Cape used to be a tablecloth.

The ability to wear whatever I want; a tutu, a fur bikini, a bad-ass road warrior leather ensemble, or a giant red cape made from my friend's old silk tablecloth. I'm remembering the cool desert evenings filled with rushing to eat, clean, dress, be ready for the chill and excitement of the dark dark night. The laughter and spontaneity of riding our blinky glowing art bikes through dunes of playa dust, veering from structure to structure, covering miles of rock hard earth just to seek out a little bit of adventure and exhilaration. I'm wistful over that feeling at the end of the week, covered in a dust so fine that no amount of washing seems to take it off, bursting with desire to create, create, PARTICIPATE, climbing the highest art piece and shouting my poetry into the dust storms. Seeing The Man explode with fire, the culmination of all our excitement and experience, until he dwindles down to nothing but embers, ashes, nuts, and bolts.


I'm feeling nostalgic about The Temple, the most quiet and sacred space at Burning Man, built carefully with intricate details, then flooded with emotion literally stapled, written on, and pinned to its wooden walls. Then on the last day, fifty thousand people gather silently - absolutely silently - and solomnly watch it burn down. Let me just say, there is something beyond magical about being one of fifty thousand quietly contemplating all that it means to see the week end and the temple burn to the ground.

Temple in Daylight

Temple at Night

I was going to write a post about how experiencing Burning Man - how being a Burner - has made me into a better parent. But instead I was feeling nostalgic and wrote this. So, in the spirit of art and community and sharing, I will leave you with a poem that I wrote after my first year at Burning Man, a poem that will be pinned up to this year's Temple which, eventually, will burn down to the ground. Simply because it must. And I'll talk about parenting another day.

=================

Handsome Mandude and I

there were good things and magnificent things 

and bad things and horrific things and i saw them all, 

i experienced them all, and they made me different. 

i blocked the sun and i made it shine, 

i helped and hindered time 

and allowed this mass to hurtle onwards. 

i rolled my eyes and rolled my tires 

over dunes of pure dust, through walls of it, 

rolled in it, slept in it, basked in it. 

i climbed on creation and filled my eyes 

and my hands, my mouth. 

my heart. 

i was part of an awe-filled silent crowd 

and i joined gangs of animals 

surging out loud. 

it seethed and was frigid, 

it was comforting, chilling. 

i swung and was flung, 

and we laughed, we wove stories, 

we shimmied, we shared, and we cried. 

we created community and we burned it all to the fucking ground
just to see if we can do it again next year.

xox

Farren Square

A Poem for World Poetry Day

Poetry is such a vulnerable thing. A simple combination of words that comes from a place so deep in our souls. Of course we are nervous to share our art with the world, it is so revealing! We are made so exposed!

It has taken me a long time to realize that my poetry isn't about the reader or their reaction to it. I write this poetry for me and myself only, I share it because I'm confident that art should be shared. Your reaction is welcome, but it doesn't shape the way I feel about my poetry.

This is an older poem of mine, taken from the book, "Pressed Flowers in a Dictionary," but it is a favourite amongst those who have heard me read aloud.  This one is called:

Scientific Method
seven even veins follow low frequencies of touch
much of which itches to be often soft but aiming
your flaming gaze makes aches of cool
shivers pool in the all small of my back
crack a skinny smile i'll shimmy for your
shake and fake nonchalance while
my mind pines and launches into scheme
dreams about your poor outsides sidled
next to (vexed too) mine.

know that the flow of our bodies ought to be
something pumping as strong as wine while
we find distractions from the
actions my hips and lips cannot deny.

touch me touch me you say play
a melody it'll be the sweetest
feat to wait and wait then reciprocate
but i can't deny the sound sound
of your lies cause the way your
body moves is so damn smooth.


I suggest you try reading it out loud. Happy World Poetry Day! 

i nursed you in the rainbow room

I nursed you in the rainbow room.

that night i nursed you in the rainbow room 

with red and orange walls
blue sheets and rolling green hills of 

blanket to cover us in warmth

and i was amazed that you were unfazed 

that you could even move a finger
let alone linger and move the love inside 

me just to nourish yourself

all the people had come in swarms to 

welcome you and lift you in their arms
and say oh he is so sleepy or oh he is 

just      too      sweet

or oh how can he be so big and yet oh 

how can he be so    small
sitting here in my embrace, nestling his 

face into my neck, into my heart.

all the people left and i breathed a real breath 

for the first time
only to hear your voice calling to me, 

calling to me, calling me for love

did you know I know everything 

about you now and live to teach you
how to become more than I'll ever be 

be able to wonder about?

and we lay together in the rainbow room, 

on the yellow sheet
rocked in the purple chair and I knew

it was too much but laundry day happens
and things need to adjust.

And I say to myself; I made that. I am making that.
I look forward to seeing how you will 

make yourself.

©  Farren Square 2010