Untangling Webs

ind (circle) –  the ghana blogs 2008 – (i feel you Colette!)

Where clear crabs slide sideways across broken seashells and glass, there is a magnificent tossing and turning. At night they sing saltwater mountains of rage and revolt, a stampede of white stallions trample screaming angels and choke a caterwauling into the sea. Like fire shooting out of high voltage outlets into frazzled plugs, every grain of sand, salt and sea was charged and exploding. My feet sank as I sang them serenades. I’d only seen it in movies and pictures, a scattered breaking and resonance burning to the top. Waves shaped like crescent moons slicing rock into shards of land beaten clean and smooth. They placed me on the tip of an arrowhead pointed towards the past and penetrating the present, monuments to unmarked graves and runaway slaves that hid there. My head was a clear glass bowl of royal blood and purple marshmallow cream emptied and refilled. The coffin was churning and busting through sky.  Shouting the word Sankofa can get you killed. It’s the rope between you and them. Everyone is tugging and trying to get heard.

Photo: BORISH

hart (circle on the line) – the counterpulse blogs 2009-

The good news is that the tears have become the ocean, now it’s about advancing and retreating until “the substance of my source becomes open to me” … and swimming and floating and going under way down deep and shooting up to the top and making the waves talk, sing, shout and laugh. It’s overwhelming for all of us, but so exciting. When my ancestors are pleased I can’t sleep. When my ancestors are not pleased I can’t sleep. I always have a headache and people keep telling me I look tired. All I can say is “You have no idea.” I feel like a shy child. Compliments make me hide just like when crabs come out of the dirt and shoot back into their holes as visitors arrive. I just don’t want it to look like a dance recital with drums and poems. Lol. This whole Performing Diaspora deal is a ride. But, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It’s the push I’ve  avoided because of the not knowing if it’s gonna work or what comes next or how people are gonna react or where the money is coming from to make this look the way it needs to. There’s so many ways to go and not much time. I have to become a spider and bring my lioness out.  The map is clear. I just gotta get the webs untangled.

Photo: BORISH