2018, I thought of something to remember…some instruction…but I also knew it wouldn’t last, the instruction, the memory would vanish and transform. Movement never lost….
Sweet-smelling wood, wet from the rain
the mist rises.
My spirit is gambling,
my cells are opening up.
The lines on our bodies shine, where time has left silver marks.
Our revealing coaxes through the gaps;
the valves of veins and vocal cords
pulsing.
There is always rain and breath.
It was a slow one,
with eyes closed;
a body-guess.
A gamble
A body.
This body.
2018,I open my mouth to speak. To flow and yet, all within and around me solidifies.
Hardened now, I seek out the fog, the mist, the warm rain. I walk.
I am making a way back to intimacy after violence. Dealing here and now, in front of you. From the inside. The air sings between all of the bodies inside this body; here in raging but abundant forests, here in the mist, my parts meet. I will no longer flinch.
This body is an outpouring.
I may swallow reactions down but, i am no longer interested in comparing our suffering.
Twenty years of fog drifting over my midnights (for there has been violence on this moon)
but I am not stumbling. There is always rain and breath.
Water me.
I am dealing here, now in front of you, from the inside.
This body is an outpouring. A fortress of….A sheltered rock-pool of tenderness, where once there were exposed nerves. I am not interested in that life anymore.
Our outlines, my outline, the outline of my face ever-changing. The pathways – small explosions of neural fireworks. Autumn crunches underfoot. I leave my outlines in soft moss. Cold, emerald leaves shaped like capillaries, nuzzle their way between my toes. I grow, grow from these capillaries outside…all the way to my insides.
This body is an outpouring. The fog.
It was a slow one,
with eyes closed
a body-guess
a body
this body
i fit around my hands, fit around my heels, and cocoon inwards
breath roles on
my parts meet
drop drop
gather
your tongue around the contour of my earlobe whispering and pulling, i unfold, unfurl feather-light.
This text will be performed as part of CONTOUR – a new composition by composer Jasmin Rodgman, premiering 6th October 2018 in an LSO Jerwood Composer+ Concert
