Creating the World, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Creating the World

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

Most of us know how

The world around us

Helps shape us—

Our morals, likes

And dislikes, ways of seeing,

How we listen, and to whom.

 

For the sake of this poem, however,

I am not just referring to the world

As society and culture,

And the morays we absorb

So easily and release so stubbornly.

 

I am speaking of the air,

The world-forces of creation,

How we are born into movement,

And how the boundaries

Of skin and bone are sung

Into form as we live, move,

And have our being in the world,

Literally sculpted as we go

By the responsive hands of space.

 

Now, here, as you move,

As you get up from your chair

To walk across the room,

As you go to dress, or eat,

Or kneel in prayer,

As you reach out to a lover

Or to pick up an infant,

Or hand the cashier your change,

Or receive an embrace,

Know, now, here, you

Are sculpting the world.

 

The very space you move

Within-to-with, you shape—

 

The air, the back space

And the many little circles

And planes you walk this day—

Become embodying language;

Your movements create

Form and living paintings

In space and time and breath,

The world responds

To your every movement,

Your every touch, and push;

 

You unfold and color the world–

As you propel forward—

The way parts and blooms around you

As if you were swimming

In a sea of impressionable air—

Because you are.

 

As you live through-with

This day, delineating your space,

Open your movements—

Your arms and the myriad

Of little dances you do,

Widen your gestures, welcome

And invite, give and receive,

Describe space with grace and purpose—

Adorn the world

With you.

 

 


 

 

All donations go to medical bills and groceries. Thank you. <3