She was fleeing from her origin-woman mother, the beginning of her, whose womb she was carried in, given birth from. Tearing at the gusset, a rupture of blood and amniotic fluid, like raw egg white spilled salty and bitter, and she found herself lying in that spreading pool of bitterness. Her mother had never wanted her, her first child, who tied her with a chain stronger than iron to a man she didn’t love.
Steig ate broken eggshell while the white spilled down the white smock of her party dress. She carried a basket of fresh hen eggs and picked them up one by one and hurled them at the womb of the tree where she hid when she escaped. They broke, and broke, and broke, yolks sliding like deep yellow suns and the whites glossy as mucus over the fallen trunk, in the tomb where she lay, flowers growing from her mouth filled with earth, she, composting into the disintegrating wood.
His eyes, sharp, hawk-like, thin man, spindly legs, and wings, skylark wings grown large, speckled brown, watching.
Steig was coughing in her sleep. Coughing so hard that she woke. She was trying to rub broken egg off her skin when she woke into clean dry sheets, a soft pillow, a fragrant night. She hugged her pillow, tears flowing.
She wished her father were home; everything in the house was so different when he was home.
As she lay in her bed crying she wondered why Granma Blé and Mr. Lipsig had come to tell her such things as made her mother mad and cruel.
She called to her Grandmothers in the night, and her Uncle Zez, for help, but the room remained dark, and silent. If the ghosts were nearby, they did not appear.
The soft pre-dawn light was slowly washing the sky when she drifted off again.
She was rushing away.
Like an ocean sucking itself out because of the cracks in its seabed and never returning. Or the wind blowing across the land, rushing on until depleted. She fell down the whirlpool circling the drain and the current was too strong to fight.
Then, the colours. She drifted between spheres of bright colours, red, yellow, blue, green, purple. It was peaceful, a moment of the infinite.
She had this dream frequently, like floating with molecules in a vast and enormous darkness that was warm, safe. The colours glowed and each floating sphere seemed a fairy godmother, and to smile on her and bless her, she couldn’t explain the feelings, but they made her calm, and happy.
It was like floating with coloured moons on merry-go-rounds, or swinging on swings, soothing, and swinging ever higher brought a forgetfulness with it, as the colours swirled by, she, flying through the air, back and forth, around and around, a little dizzy, giddy with joy, its freedom.
Alone, but not alone, for the coloured balls were there, glimmering with her.
She came out of this rich and nurturing place of her dreams when she woke. She lay in bed, still feeling a mystical warmth.
We’re all only floating molecules, she thought. Nothing lasts and that gave her relief.
Or was she an old woman now, remembering backwards a life rushing towards her? Steig had a moment of pure confusion, a lonely teen, and yet something else, her future bringing her into being.
She imagined herself old, sometimes, she didn’t know why.
Sometimes she stared in the mirror until she saw wrinkles appear and jowls, a heavier neck, stared until she saw herself grown old in the mirror.
But not today, she got up with the coloured globes ringing in her ears with music of the spheres, the sound of molecules whirling in their vast inner spaces.
Steig ate broken eggshell while the white spilled down the white smock of her party dress. She carried a basket of fresh hen eggs and picked them up one by one and hurled them at the womb of the tree where she hid when she escaped. They broke, and broke, and broke, yolks sliding like deep yellow suns and the whites glossy as mucus over the fallen trunk, in the tomb where she lay, flowers growing from her mouth filled with earth, she, composting into the disintegrating wood.
His eyes, sharp, hawk-like, thin man, spindly legs, and wings, skylark wings grown large, speckled brown, watching.
Steig was coughing in her sleep. Coughing so hard that she woke. She was trying to rub broken egg off her skin when she woke into clean dry sheets, a soft pillow, a fragrant night. She hugged her pillow, tears flowing.
She wished her father were home; everything in the house was so different when he was home.
As she lay in her bed crying she wondered why Granma Blé and Mr. Lipsig had come to tell her such things as made her mother mad and cruel.
She called to her Grandmothers in the night, and her Uncle Zez, for help, but the room remained dark, and silent. If the ghosts were nearby, they did not appear.
The soft pre-dawn light was slowly washing the sky when she drifted off again.
She was rushing away.
Like an ocean sucking itself out because of the cracks in its seabed and never returning. Or the wind blowing across the land, rushing on until depleted. She fell down the whirlpool circling the drain and the current was too strong to fight.
Then, the colours. She drifted between spheres of bright colours, red, yellow, blue, green, purple. It was peaceful, a moment of the infinite.
She had this dream frequently, like floating with molecules in a vast and enormous darkness that was warm, safe. The colours glowed and each floating sphere seemed a fairy godmother, and to smile on her and bless her, she couldn’t explain the feelings, but they made her calm, and happy.
It was like floating with coloured moons on merry-go-rounds, or swinging on swings, soothing, and swinging ever higher brought a forgetfulness with it, as the colours swirled by, she, flying through the air, back and forth, around and around, a little dizzy, giddy with joy, its freedom.
Alone, but not alone, for the coloured balls were there, glimmering with her.
She came out of this rich and nurturing place of her dreams when she woke. She lay in bed, still feeling a mystical warmth.
We’re all only floating molecules, she thought. Nothing lasts and that gave her relief.
Or was she an old woman now, remembering backwards a life rushing towards her? Steig had a moment of pure confusion, a lonely teen, and yet something else, her future bringing her into being.
She imagined herself old, sometimes, she didn’t know why.
Sometimes she stared in the mirror until she saw wrinkles appear and jowls, a heavier neck, stared until she saw herself grown old in the mirror.
But not today, she got up with the coloured globes ringing in her ears with music of the spheres, the sound of molecules whirling in their vast inner spaces.
(image from my videopoem, the dancer's backskin)
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