Poetry As Meditation - Here I Am I Am I Am

A practice of poetic listening, of sensing language, a recording that inspirits beauty and connection with ourselves and the natural world. Perfect for active or passive meditation, you can listen in rest, in your seat, or on the move. This one features woven prose around landscapes, the space between waking and sleeping, and animate relationship with life.

Transcript

Some part of me has always known the arc of low branches, How a landscape or horizon or the scent of a memory can break us open and fit us back together again all at once. Here the dune grass, Here an expanse, Golden red blooms, The asters. I listen to the birds while I'm still in bed, And I keep my eyes shut as long as I can, Not pressed tight, But kissing lashes to lashes, The mineral of sleep in their corners, The promise of daylight. I'm trying to remember how to dream or remember how to remember my dreams or dream the answer of how, In fact, To remember. However you want to put it, I'm intent on the lingering, The listening, How one version shape shifts into the other. That's always the answer. Just keep listening. The dawn chorus is in fact a proclamation. Here I am, Here I am, Here I am, I am, I am. I made it through the night. And the response, Here we are, We are, We are, We are, We are surviving the dark. This dwelling space of half awake is holy, A sensing language, Lucid, Precarious. I am in two worlds, Maybe more. Time bends, Snakes, Slithers, Coils. Nothing feels permanent, None of it. Maybe permanence isn't the objective anyways. A resting body remembers that a dreaming mind is ungovernable. I slide my hands over my body, Breast, Sternum, The tender spaces between my ribs. I hold my belly in both hands, Softer than I've ever been. Undulations upon undulations cascading into an inland sea. The liminal is a space of possibility and creativity, Both resting and enlivened. I drop tiny anchors into my heart and feel for its flutter, A ripple. There is a day that wants to be made. I feel for the veil thin between us, The birds in our hearts. The sky does the thing of threats and miracles, Light, Dark, Light again. And I said, I was waiting. And what replies said, You think you have a choice? I push my face into every rose and pray. Waiting for imminent magic is, In fact, Intimate magic. Hear the electricity of our buzzy aliveness, The wild thrum of a winged thing. I think about the sinews holding us together, Holding the space, The small joints of fingers and toes, Distal movements, Experimental of arms and legs. A wild instrument, Our unstruck heart. I ruffle my body like feathers. Perhaps the choosing to go and choosing to stay are intimately linked, Chemical reactions. If this, Then that, One glimpse and then another, Distortions of color and light beneath the surface. A transient thunder of time goes on. I try on a fondness for my changing body, For changes in general. Everything else morphs, Tries on the character of years. Energy is energy, We all return to the ocean. Some people have called it God. We wait up to our chests in water and let ourselves float, Lean back, Lean back, Lean back, Lean back. I am light, Light, Light, And I wait for whatever is supposed to happen to happen. The water is calm and clear. We are practicing surrender, Being both held and held up, Buoyed shades of blue. Fish jump in silvery schools and initiation of mixed waders takes flight. Insignificant in the scheme of things. Whirling in orbit, The collective agreement, This is sacred and we need to figure it out together. Somewhere a bird that can't be named plunges themselves into the water and sharp dives once, Twice, Three times, And flies away. Here I am. Here I am. Here I am. I am. I am. I dream of scaffolds, How to build out the shapes of our bodies, Erupting in waves and beacons thrust toward the light. Here we are, We are, We are. Survive in the dark.