Cheza Roho - Wed, 5th Aug 2020

I had so much fun with this process. I allowed myself to respond to the text in movement, in sound, in word and matched this practice with my pending first creative healing session. The tasks married each other so beautifully. The process really was more enjoyable than this draft product. I felt, flowed, listened back, watched back, edit, cut, refined and then collated to something I would be ok with sharing (I am working on sharing more openly but this is a challenge).

Enjoy. Tell me what you take away from it.

Curmiah Lisette x

p.s. I’m still learning on the technical side so this is all experimentation.

Prompt: I AM HEAVEN

5 is Free (pertaining to numerology)

by Curmiah Lisette

I am five

I am free

I am love

heaven to me

My cousin is my dearest playmate

it is not yet the break-up of mommy and daddy -

a pain I ‘not yet’ know, but is around the corner

i ka espèyé mwen pou diwèkté lavi mwen, (it is waiting for me to direct me)

pou djidé ki sa èvèk manyè’a mwen ka apwann (to guide what and how I learn)

akòdi I sé an vyé fanm ki ka espèyé lanmò (as if I am an old woman who is waiting for death)

it is an experience I must know, but not yet.

I am five

I am free

I’ve dismounted Apaché’s back with grandpa,

stroked his ivory barrell and I am licking

Uncle P’s cake mix with my cousin

on the kitchen step

we lick spoons and fingers twirl

in texture like whipped shea butter,

a cream the taste of honey.

At 5, my gut can rightly discern

a yes from a no

I know heaven

so my fingers pirouette

and I lick some more

You ask me to conjure heaven

and I am gazing at my five-year old

running, playing free with her mate

in fields much greater than 40 acres

she is the picture of both mommy and daddy

and knows heaven, in the way of her world

and I come to reason why King Yoncé

named her daughter Blue -

that despite her life’s rhythm and blues,

her labour of love, she’d still have to school

her youth on the value of their skin

through edified Disney dreams,

history rewrites, jazzed up classics

elder’s wisdom in youth’s tongue

You ask me to conjure heaven

it’s 5pm, the sun is beaming through

the tall glass window, lighting up my skin

golden like ripe julie mango

and I know Sevana captured this summer’s sun -

I dance free.

We’ve come in from a walk through

the forest after yesterday’s day at the beach

where my skin glistened with wet

under heat of sun, I know this scent

I know heaven is a kannaval -

watch how I jumping this way

and wining down low,

how my feet stamping di earth

in response to its prayer

how my words dance to root

even in tongue

I am five

I am free

I am curled up in bed

reading with mother

snuggled in the expanse

of father’s arm

heaven,

Curmiah Lisette6 August 2020Comment