Murmurations: at the equinox

A note from adrienne maree brown: Alta Starr has had many lifetimes and walks with easy wisdom. These days, she is a playful poet, thorough writer, deep collaborative thinker, and tarot oracle.

between the breath鈥檚

peak and trough

an infinitesimal point

of stillness

(less than a jiffy鈥檚 60^th of a second)

between a pendulum鈥檚 swings

at the edges of its repeating arc

gravity grapples with inertia

and wins eventually

always

given air friction

drag force

(unless: think metronome
standing longcase clock
motion maintained mechanically)

at the top of each swing

before the pendulum turns

to return

a pause

in that stillness
we can slide

out

away from the war

declare a ceasefire

a truce in this tug of war聽

between the inescapable pull聽

诲辞飞苍飞补谤诲听

the constant push to move

this face-off

between what we can鈥檛 outrun

and all that keeps us running

the weighty dilemmas of history
at war with life鈥檚

bottomless desire for more聽

life

trapped in clock

and calendar forced march

we lose circular time

the seasons鈥� reminders in feeling

that the planet

rotates on its own axis

revolves, inexorable,

closer to and further from its star

we lose the joy of that wheeling

the peace of fulcrums

of light and darkness balanced

while we聽

wild freedom

slip

out

Alta Starr is currently the director of training for Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD), and is a somatic practitioner or 鈥渁liveness doula,鈥� writer, and poet. She spent 25 years as a grant-maker supporting organizing and social movements to build political power in underserved and marginalized U.S. communities, especially in the South. Her own political engagement began in the Black Power Movement of the 1960s, and informed her early work as a teacher, parent organizer, and radio news and music producer. She has published essays about embodiment, including the introductory chapter to the book Making and Being, a textbook for undergraduate students in the visual arts. She is currently working on a book project, tentatively titled Conjugating Freedom, a collection of essays and poems examining freedom as an embodied experience. She is based in New York and speaks English.

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