this is a poem i wrote last night

I had plans to write to you about something else entirely this morning — something about the prison work I'm starting to get back into, something about a local city council meeting focused on the arts, happening on Monday, September 16th, 5-7pm (save that date, and I’ll come back to it), something about the ventral vagal system, which I am only now learning about, thanks to a student speaking of it so beautifully — but instead, I’m sharing this.

It’s what I wrote last night, sitting with a friend, after we had homemade pizza, salad, and wine, as Glen sat with, and then stayed over at the house of another friend of ours, who is right now dying. 

My legs crossed under me, my back a little curved, my thumb holding the page, my eyes seeing dark, my chin tucked in, my shoulders bare.

My mind running, my hope stilled, my blessings, all of them, around and around.

Inside the house in the evening with my friend, worlds away from what is breaking, dying, falling.

Inside the house, my house, night outside, so dark, my dark, the dark of what is breaking, dying, falling. 

That pinched nerve.
That high call.
That ringing of a bell.
That sound of flight.

That is, this is, where I am now, and what I can write about today, to you.

I quit myself, my night, my house, my shoulders - bare.

And then come back, like morning, like a talisman, like a rain, so wet, inside the house.

My little one who will not let me say, anymore, “little one”.

Where I am, with you, right now, this night, waiting for sleep, or not, like the rain inside the house.

I have eaten all the food.
I have locked all the doors.
I have run wild and ragged
into that rain.

My body is water and light, earth next to rock,
underneath the tree,
inside concrete buildings,
outside too, sleeping on the step.

This is where I am now, legs crossed beneath me, back a little curved, thumb holding the page, 

Eyes seeing dark.

With warmth, always warmth,
Joanna
of
Joanna and The Agitators
sweetly agitating/persistently upending
www.joannaandtheagitators.com