#31 — let me count the signs

COMPOSED BY KARI WATSON, PREMIERED BY SOPRANO MAGGIE KINABREW, INSPIRED BY HEIDI ANDREA RESTREPO RHODES’ POEM

let me count the signs of life amidst the planet’s dying

April 6, 2020; (after Sabrina Ghaus)

It is my birthday and the bodies are nowhere near

done piling up. Though even in the sweeter years, the ones

that red my mouth with pomegranate,

this is true. We hurl through the heavens, a planet

of purple evenings, blink-eye fairytales, dreams at dawn. A planet

of stone-cold violence and dread. The occasional feisty miracle.

The bodies are never done

piling up. Though spring finds its way, even if

the budding comes from the soilbed of the breathless.

Open your ears. In the grasses sprouting, a universe

sings. The birds, they bicker, and thank god

they have something to bicker about. This too,

a sign of life. It is my birthday

and the bodies we, are nowhere near, my beloveds and I.

All quarantined. I hunger for the warm house of your

cheeks, the kisses before the province of the Far Away

forbade us, made us islands drifting. I am

quarantined and mapless, but the starfish have returned.

The maples weep their sugar for the bucket. I am

quarantined and braid my hair to write a poem

with my body. Stranded, we weave. I am quarantined

and learning to better read the smilebeam of eyes

peering over the masked inlet. Beloveds, your bodies

are nowhere near, and this is how we

see another sunrise. And the bodies are nowhere

neardonepilingup.

Today, years ago, Mari gave me the light. Today the spider

knits home again by the window and I plait my head’s silky roost

and so we are. sister weavers. And tomorrow still, I will

quarantine, me the grain of sand inside the oyster shell, wanting

a sooner than later glimmering. I’ll grow

older with the trees who stretch their arms, too 

say yes, come, come near to me

in my dreams for now while we are in the Far Away, and when

someday I am a soilbed of breathless, be the tulip

by the window, be the bickering bird, be from out me a bursting spring. 

O please, O please, be spring.

EXTENDED CONVERSATION

Join us for an extended conversation with Kari Watson, Maggie Kinabrew and Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes regarding their virtual collaboration for the "Stay-at-Home Symposium." Moderated by Musaics of the Bay Artistic Director Audrey Vardanega, Kari, Maggie and Heidi discuss their artistic backgrounds and their collaborative process.