[Poem] Reciprocal Rhythm

Reciprocal Rhythm | Toni Spencer

There is a reciprocal rhythm. A flow between things.
A velocity of reciprocity that builds a village, builds
a dream, builds the world.
For we are kin and kin means I need
you, and you need me. And the sun.
And the water. And the soil
born of things long dead.

Most of us grew up in little boxes. Little boxes
made of ticky-tacky. My house.
Your house. My plate. Your plate.
In the desert, there is one plate at dinner. One plate
where we all tuck in, fingers first, food for all.
I want that.

I want you to ask me for stuff.
I want you to ask because asking is
the kind of boldness we need.
Tell me what you want and I come
a little closer to you, and we dance.
It’s not the yes or the no, but the asking
that rocks the world to this rhythm.
And the ticky-tacky begins to crumble, walls fall
and we need each other all the more.

There is a reciprocal rhythm. Let me
give you things. Don’t hold back
your receiving, because it leaves us both
bereft of the kinship that ties us, reminds
us of our entwined-ness as ecological beings.
I cannot. No. I will not survive without you.
OK yes, some kind of half living but
not the kind I’m worthy of.
Not the kind you’re worthy of. And not
the kind they are worthy of.
Help me, not to fix but to fill the heart. Not to trade but to
till the soil of inter-being that is all there has ever been.

There is a reciprocal rhythm and it’s not in 4-4 for it
doesn’t follow straight lines. It’s a wild rhythm where
I help you and you help her and she gets to stop and he
gives all he has for love.

There is a reciprocal rhythm and it’s not in 4-4.

Galvanize 

The time has come
to galvanize those heaving sighs from
fraught days and spiritual malaise. From
miles and miles spent in supermarket aisles
overwhelmed by choices to the point where
we lose our voices and so silently
we loosen our ties to life.
“Oh my loves what magic we could make if we
galvanized. Realized beyond fantasized futures, the
power of our presence”
Yes. The time has come, to get together.
To claim the prize of a collective awakening:
Get off our arses.  Realize our vastness and
put it to work: Stopping the shopping and stepping out in the
streets. Battlefronts. Shop fronts. Fields.
Boardrooms. Classrooms. Living rooms.
It’s time to galvanize. To alchemize a fullness of voice.
A radical choice. To speak up for what we know
to be true.