The Danforth Anchor

Find your body’s language out. . .
and speak it.

Allow for the turmoil
bubbling there. . .

Shut your mouth,
dull your ears,
close your eyes,

release the muscles, tendons,
ligaments
that harbor old and new predicaments,

And if you only swing to skim the surface,
breathe a belly much more low
no need to broad your search beyond
this body that you know. . .

Fathom howe’erso far you can,
and if that yields not your answer,
breathe bigger still,
stick to your search
and deep it.

There is nothing in this moment
on which you need to comment,
just feel the crannies and the nooks
inside and peripheral,
derma- down to visceral,

head to toe,
a sweep so thorough
that to make a better one
would be impossible or its added value marginal,
no matter how you’d eke it.

And listen to each itty bit
of you
and let those teeming cells and tissues
speak in words and phrases
which you never learned,
yet know–

Where there’s a twitch or place that’s froze,
the body tells you what needs calming, and
what aches to move, and how,

So that,
if your body were an ailing whale,
though, for right now, it’s hard to tell,

where it would seem to be at risk,
you’ll make it ,
much more than e’er before,
quite whole,

with very little likelihood
that any time soon
the mighty ocean would
rise to sweep it up and beach it.

Thus,
we still admire and see it,
when with this wise round you’re through,
which goes to show,

how far better it can be
to get to know
that body well,
and ask it what it wants of you,

than to beg
to the unseen vague
in yonder blue
to come to your body’s quick rescue,
for that far off vague cannot,
as slow and sure
as your own trusty body and you,
on the same team
can teach it.

The sun is bright–
+++++ the weather warm. . .
Day long,
+++++ short night
Trees fruit,
+++++ wide rivers
++++++++++ settle into currents,
++++++++++ upon which boats, and people flow
++++++++++ on water fed, perhaps, with melt of winter’s plenteous snow,†††

+++++ and throw dares
+++++ come down from sky
++++++++++ back to our eyes
+++++ to see if we will stay afloat
+++++ in face of glares bloomed fiercely bright,

But each minute,
here in our earth’s north half
ticks us toward the solstice high,
which soon will steer us ’round the other way,

as the star-savvy people know,
to move toward the mode
where our earth’s south-half neighbors
live right now,

slinking toward the dead of winter,
having left behind
the sting of bee, the flit of butterfly
the prancing ants,
the acts of aid to child or self,
to pull out insult got by wood
at play or work,
the summer’s “Ouch!”-producing splinter.

Globe’s bottom half,
in not too long, will know
what we’ve but fairly newly left–

the world of rain and wet,
of biting ice and wind and cold,
of dark, short days,
and long deep nights,

so fit for spirit, thought,
respite, pause to be with
self,

and others,
gathered,
young and old,

and learn in profound still and quiet,
what joys and sorrows
lurk in us,
and the world, indoors and out–

around our fires,
or
beneath dark, bright-starlit skies,

or waking, eager,
to the day
to be the first
to make the puddles splash,
stem any flood,
or sink the edge of shovel’s blade
or our boot’s sole
to cut a path
and leave our mark
right in the snow.

Sunshine,
fresh air–
all fine,

but lacks a little something there.

Be free
and strong,

but woven, winding,
grounded, hugging,
intertwined.

Though it may,
for now, elude,
the right terroir,
if not right here,
cannot be very far
or difficult to find.

A well-took breath,
or well-drawn flowing water slake,
a whiff and grounding of the earth
a song,
a tale,
a laugh
toward the task
may be enough
to stretch a broken-hearted body
and bend and quite electrify
a deeply rutted mind.