656: cycle
656: cycle
Transcript
I’m Ada Limón and this is The Slowdown.
I have been obsessed with cycles lately, with the idea of what returns to us. I feel the relief of seasons coming again, often just as I’ve just decided to give up on whatever season I’ve been so stuck in. But I’m also obsessed with cycles in the body, cycles in the mind. I, for one, go through a cycle of silence, when I don’t want to speak to anyone, when I crave aloneness and smallness. I think the human animal is just as affected by cycles as the non-human animal, though we may not always admit it.
We like to believe we are in control, that we are the masters of our fate, but then here comes gravity, here comes mortality, here comes the earth, the sun, the stars and everything that’s so much larger than our little tender human bodies wandering the planet in our strange outfits made out of fabrics and plastics. The cycles, whether we like it or not, are way more in charge than we are. And actually, I like the idea of something bigger than me and my worries making things spin.
Today’s poem explores the idea of cycles and the extraordinary power of the earth that we all belong to.
cycle
by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
what the star said to the earth: sometimes i wish i was like you. solid and findable. thick and round. cool and stable. sometimes i look at you when you don’t think i’m looking at you. you are there in the dark of me and i see mysteries that make me want to sing. but would you hear? what the earth said to the star: sometimes i wish i was like you. bright and hot. fast as light and al- ways lit. seen even after you are gone. i wish that people wished on me like how they wish on you. make you into prophecy. claim you as their origin when i am still right here. Sometimes i listen to you when you think i am not listening to you and i don’t know how to feel about your song. so i tilt. so i keep spinning. so i stay around.1 it turns. that’s what we know. and supposedly it is too slow for any- one to feel it. that’s an underestimation, made by men who ignore the impact of cycles on their own dull dizzying days. work around work around work around. if only the ground was something to hold on to. i would hold your heartbeat in my head. if only this constant dragging didn’t mean that we all would end up dead.2 southern fruit of high planted stalk. of wind-carried seed of unan- swered need. brazen root of unhurried trees of foundations found and broke through. bright leaves of won’t you, split crook of don’t you, raised welt of shown true the black. your back. you’re back. the black true shone. of welt raise you. don’t. of crook split. you. want of leaves bright. through broke and found founda- tions. of trees unhurried. of root brazen. need unanswered. of seed carried. wind of stalk planted. high of fruit. southern.3
"cycle" by Alexis Pauline Gumbs from DUB © 2020 Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Used by permission of Duke University Press.
