Poems “Walk Gently” and “Reading the Body” by Ann Moradian

Walk Gently…

 

Walk gently

with feet that listen tenderly.

It is my body you mark with each step.

 

Know yourself by the feel of the air

as it breathes through the pores of your skin.

It is my soul you breathe

in your lungs in your blood in your heart.

 

Regard the weather well.

As you march through the heat that burns water dry

it is the dust of my skin you spit aside.

 

And when the rains fall, take care

As muddy checks distort and slide.

In between rain and sun, life takes root and grows

with a joy that veers toward ecstasy.

 

Come often, lest paths carved out over years disappear.

Life shoots up any place it can.

Certain small deaths are necessary.

 

But walk gently, with feet that listen tenderly and give you strength.

It is my body that supports you as you mark it with each step.

It is my face beneath your feet at the summit

where the wind blows free and unhindered.

Ann Moradian, April 15, 2009

© Ann Moradian. All rights reserved.

 

 

Reading the Body

 

I hadn’t realized when I touched your hand,

or you touched mine, that I hold the hand of your mother,

the empty space your lover has left

embracing you like armor…

your cat’s fur caressing my skin…

I hear a child crying and run with you

ahead of the rush of water

that mounts canyon walls…

 

What is this weaving when we meet,

when each of us carries already an entire universe?

Ann Moradian, 2009

© Ann Moradian. All rights reserved.

 

Ann Moradian is a movement artist, educator, writer and researcher with an MA in Dance Education, BA in Art & Society, a diploma in Improvisation & Creativity, yoga, the martial arts and classical dance training certifications, as well as certifications in social design and systems thinking. Originally a dancer and choreographer, Ann performed in New York in the companies of Anna Sokolow, Manuel Alum, Impulse Theatre & Dance and Perspectives In Motion, which she founded in 1988. Today, her work focuses on the relationships between movement, healthy ecologies and conscious evolution through diverse movement and interdisciplinary projects. Voted Best Yoga in Paris in 2016. Ann speaks on behalf of the body and its wisdom, which she sees as a critical aspect of the deep transformations needed to shift destructive patterns of living to sane, healthy and ecologically viable patterns of participation.


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2 responses to “Poems “Walk Gently” and “Reading the Body” by Ann Moradian”

  1. Aili Whalen Avatar

    I am so grateful for these poems, Ann. I love “the feel of the air breathing through the pores of your skin.” It also gave me chills to realize that by touching someone’s hand you touch the other people who have touched that person. So true and so profound.

    1. Ann Moradian Avatar
      Ann Moradian

      Thank you so much Aili! I am deeply touched that these words moved you.

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