MIGHT

We slide lower
to
dance
our awkward dance


conjuring
Urban country-dance,
the depth, elegance, and calm swallows
of our sadness.

As beneath gesticulates,
shapes of shadows and paradise,
the sun and moon pools in one hand.


Words by Sondra Fraleigh are an exploration of the limbic brain, the emotional brain explained in terms of neuroscience and psychiatry. Here we find that emotional maturity is not synonymous with emotional restraint; rather, it grows through love and nurture. The brain's ancient emotional architecture permeates the dance of life. All mammals have developed a capacity for relationships through the limbic system, an aspect of the evolutionary nature of mammals. The open loop of "limbic resonance" and "limbic revision" allows us to bond with our family, with pets, friends, and lovers. It is also the basis for implicit memory, the hazy dance informing bone and gesture, bodily repetition and habit. The limbic system allows us to tune our nature to the larger scheme of nature.

DANCING X

Pick your favorite music.

In the manner of your absorption,
Let it be uncultured.

Resonate its anatomy.

Untransplantable tone
Hijacking language,

Turn it off, and lie down.
Drop down into silence.
X yourself. . . .
Fall into limbo (as you are),
And lose yourself, Xing.

How did history come to acquire
This blind spot
And never find a remedy?

X yourself. . . . Then begin
To pay attention to your breath.
X your name,
And leave behind no documents.

For an answer, one could start with those
Cuts and stitches, those cobbled together
Scars that fit so comfortably.

Now begin- from the the unguessed place
Of non-sense. Let the dance emerge freely
As it will, and follow its path: through
Silence to sound threading back.

The corpus of history in your bones,
The celebrations of the body
Embedded in the world of you.

What sound did you hear?
Remember if you can,
And if you can't, silence the effort.
Resist explanation.

Mythology and religion
Returning the real of your dance
With plenitude.

Repeat and surrender
The fretful framework
Listen to your heart
Move

In tertiary- of nature
Beauty and you.

Let go of questions, of any assessment.
Lift an arm and stand, if you are not
Already standing. Become a little stooped
And stop any eruptive force.

Breath, sigh, and sink your body
Into self-remembering,

Transmuting silence in X
Xpanding.



Also by Fraleigh-

Night Rider

Fierce, she is riding
at dusk in the desert, on
sands that are glowing with pink.

Blood-red, the sun colors her horse
in its pounding, her
robes a swirl in the ink.

How amber her skin on the
blurry horizon, soft as
dew being born.

She is riding on breath in a
pathless land, she is riding
and riding, toward dawn.

The voices of air
and the natural elements
pass her like water in waves.

As over the mystery
she gallops and glides, pausing
to drink and to bathe.

In various shapes
we discern her arriving,
as jackals speak, and they name.

Here, then, the land
without lords, without masters,
just friends of the night and the pain.