Poetry: Movement and Immobility
By Ekiwah Adler Beléndez
"I love poetry because it stops me dead in my tracks," said Dr. Nuzzo, a surgeon and poet. I pause, wonder: What does poetry or art in general do for me? I've had plenty of time to stop dead in my tracks, be in my wheelchair, and wait with the patience of a hunter for the images to come. There is a pause, a decision that must be taken, a quest for precision:
I found myself at a crossroads
knowing another poem
had tapped me on the shoulder,
a drunk asking for money.But what road should I take?
Here I am trying to find the right words.
"Was your gift born of your disability?" people have asked me. Why ponder on the answer? What my disability gave me was the ability to stop. How did I imagine the taste of rage or see the earth and the sky as two octopuses wrestling, if not by stopping dead in my tracks to take it in? In immobility there is nothing to distract me from myself but myself:
Alone, with my images
Like fish riding on the water
or coral reefs deep below the surface.I pull on the oars,
but why do I struggle if I know
I will never reach the shore?
Yet for me, poetry is a way of moving:
Here I come with my eight legs,
with nothing,
with all,
a poem set in motion!
I cannot walk by myself, yet in my poem I not only walk, but give myself license to have eight legs and experience movement. When I read a poem, on an ephemeral level I go to the places the poet describes. Here is an example from T.S. Eliot:
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question.
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit
I am there, walking through certain half deserted streets, sleeping in one-night cheap hotels and smelling sawdust and oyster shells. In my stillness I am in motion.
I recognize the implicit solitude of being a writer:
My words have the deliberate solitude of lizards,
their tongues unfold like a royal carpet
straining to hear the inward music
of distant saxophones.
I want to scream to fully express my desire:
Yet here I am,
a tree felled by lightning
lying in this deep pit
unable to decide
unable to move.
My immobility is both a blessing and a curse:
I feel like a tree that has no branches
A cry:
Please, split me in two
and give me another pair of wings.
My immobility also can be accompanied by the joy of victory:
My feet touching the ground
Tired legs
Sore hands
Parched elbows
Why?
Steps, I'm walking!
Here is a fragment of a poem I wrote the day before undergoing back surgery. Oddly enough, at that moment I felt calm. A part of me knew it was for the better, and was surprised by my own mindfulness. A part of me spoke to that tranquility in disbelief. Perhaps that's why the poem is in third person singular instead of in first person, which is the voice I usually use. It is as if I am watching someone else, in awe. When I write poetry, I am both the actor and the witness of myself:
In God's name
how can he forget
that pain will be appearing on stage
in a few hours?Or was Nelson Mandela right
when he said it was not our darkness
but our own light
we were afraid of?
I glance at the past: I imagine the moment Dr. Nuzzo received a large envelope with both X-rays of my spine.and my poetry books. I can also imagine his gentle eyes filled with concern. He wrote back, "Scoliosis such as we see in these films will ALWAYS get worse and will produce very, very serious bodily contortion beyond your worst nightmares. These deformities are like falling trees. They're very slow in their initial process, and then they pick up speed...You simply cannot allow this to go further." And to our surprise he also wrote, "I was frozen in my productivity in the middle of a busy day by my reading this youngster's poetry." Understanding our limited economic situation he generously offered his services free of charged and invited two other spinal surgeons, Dr. Feldman and Dr. Errico, to join in an effort to "bail a poet out of trouble."
All this might seem miraculous yet for me the miracle was to discover that Dr. Nuzzo was also a poet and a lover of words. We started writing to each other before meeting. For both of us it was heaven in cyber space. He wrote to me about my poetry and the power of words. He understood my poetry and my creative process more deeply than I did. He possessed a metaphysical ability to walk into the heart of my poems almost to the point of becoming me. While I saw him as a person from whom I was constantly learning, he saw me as a worthy opponent. He would send me writing exercises and tips challenging me to respond and take my poetry to its next step. Later he would tell me, "I was throwing ideas at you like in a ping pong match. I wanted to see how many of them you could catch ." Even though all this was fascinating, I felt very reluctant to undergo such a big complicated surgery. I felt angry and my fear led me to feel distrust. It was not until I met him that the weight of my fear melted.
The day of the surgery finally arrived and I fell asleep laughing, knowing I was in good hands though the pain of waking up with a new spine would be shocking. Looking back on the surgery, I realize it was a divine excuse for us to meet.
I dictated the following poem to my father under the influence of strong drugs for the pain. I remember closing my eyes and seeing many impressionistic paintings come whirling at me. My body with a brand new spine felt like a total stranger. I even went so far as to say this body is not mine! It was in that dreamy unreal state, in the strangeness of getting re-acquainted with my body that inspiration came:
I am in the white prison
of those with disjointed feverish limbs,
yet, when there is no noise
I become the white prison,
snow of white and clean ideas,
a white shark
in a sea of mercy.Around me luminous hands
open a wound,
the metal they temper
makes the strongest sword.I see an emerald fire in me
In this sweet hour I discover
that by being the snake-
a spark of warm intelligence-
I am the warrior.
In situations of adversity my disability sometimes speaks out and is a character with a strong beautiful voice.
"Ekiwah" means warrior in Purepecha (an indigenous language of Mexico) I have never really seen myself as a strong person and I'm not good at bearing physical pain, but, in that moment, I realized it was by being the slow snake, full of intention and ambition, that I was a warrior. The warrior must plan, decide, and watch before acting. It was in writing this poem that I had, as Doctor Nuzzo later stated in an interview, the first true realization of how strong I was. I am strong by being slow:
What light in the pillows
and hospital rooms
made bodies in such agony slowly bloom?
The fragment above is part of a poem I dedicated to Dr. Nuzzo after I fully recovered from the surgery. I finally see how all physical pain and changes are part of a process of rebirth. Now I can sit straight and have the possibility to keep on living. Dr. Nuzzo and the other surgeons donated their services. Their immense kindness, the unconditional love and support of my parents and my literary agent bringing poached pears in wine were a big part of what kept me going.
I used to think "I can't go up a tree but can write poetry." I used to say in my book presentations, "Life takes away one thing but gives me another to compensate." Now as I re-evaluate, I realize it was not even compensation. I was born into a rich, loving circle of family and friends. I didn't long to go up a tree. I was too busy speaking to the flowers and watching the afternoon light set on the mountains. Too busy listening to my father's voice, the voice of a river. Too busy discovering Dr. Seuss, C.S. Lewis and Lloyd Alexander to even care about climbing trees! Most people congratulate my parents for doing such a great job overcoming the obstacle of my disability, but I think one of the things that makes my family so wonderful is that they did not see my disability as something to overcome, but rather something to embrace, something that was simply a part of who I am. Everyone has played an important role in the family. My mom sharing the mysteries of life with me; my dad giving up his work to devote his life to my needs and my younger brother always pushing me to take the next step and thinking about little things I might like. All of this has and continues to nurture my life.
For me the challenge that comes with disability is not that I can't walk; the challenge is to belong:
I am a ghost, an illusion
I know nothing, and nothing knows me
I yearn to belong to a group of friends that I can be with regularly. I yearn to express desire, know mutual romantic love. I want to keep expanding my circle of relationships. As I grow older, that web of connections grows too. I am interacting more with other youth. I feel I am more in and of the world. Looking back, I realize this was not always true. When I was a child I can remember feeling lonely. I was often disappointed because my friends were too busy doing other things to visit me. Now it has changed. I can find more people who have similar interests and who are happy to share them. People who like me are passionate about life and love what they are doing. Yet doubts still emerge. Are people truly willing to see me as one of them? Can they make enough room for me? Can they go out of their way to visit me? Is their friendship steady enough that they will come to visit me more than once? Can a woman dare see me with lustful eyes without being afraid of expressing her feelings? More importantly, am I willing to realize that I do belong? Can I overcome my own insecurities? Can I express how I would like others to see me?
I am wrestling with two worlds. The world of myself, an infinite yet familiar world. A world I navigate in comfortably. A lonely world. An immobile world. And another world, the world of the other, the unfamiliar yet deeply intriguing world of ties and relationships, of engagement, of doubt and expectation. The world of relationships and movement:
The city inside me is moaning
Rising out of her wet bed
I am at this time in my life taken by that other world. What a delicate balance! Suddenly, I feel afraid:
Now, deft at finding my way
an octopus
studying the aquatic map
of social encounter
has the poet in me lost his way
does he no longer visit his factory?
Will my interest in social engagement make me forget my inner world?
Luckily, the need for inspiration.
What is found there?
Why do poets die of hunger
more than once a day?
and the joy of embracing all.
Where ever I go I take my house with me:
I take my heart.
.help me find a good balance.
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Comments
Your words resonate with such clarity and perceptiveness. Your concepts are so insightful and your expressive language so unique. You truly have an awe-inspiring gift that belies your tender age. May you continue to nurture your talents. I hope to be able to read more of your work. !Vaya con Dios!
- Iris Laflamme
Westbrook, ME