#cathysong

[hawaiicalendar]

To keep our local arts alive, @manoavalleytheatre and @bambooridge are collaborating to host a joint fundraiser featuring award-winning poet Cathy Song on Saturday, September 12 at 4:00 PM. Limited in-person seating is available through the Manoa Valley Theatre box office with free virtual access streaming on Facebook Live. #artshawaii #hawaiiarts #forthrloveofthearts #cathysong #hawaiievents #theatre #poetry https://www.instagram.com/p/CDVP_najfqY/?igshid=xcf8s6l92b9m

[blinktoday]

The man moves earth to dispel grief. He digs holes the size of cars. In proportion to what is taken what is given multiplies— rain-swollen ponds and dirt mounds rooted with flame-tipped flowers. He carries trees like children struggling to be set down. Trees that have lived out their lives, he cuts and stacks like loaves of bread which he will feed the fire. The green smoke sweetens his house. The woman sweeps air to banish sadness. She dusts floors, polishes objects made of clay and wood. In proportion to what is taken what is given multiplies— the task of something else to clean. Gleaming appliances beg to be smudged, breathed upon by small children and large animals flicking out hope as she whirls by, flap of tongue, scratch of paw, sweetly reminding her. The man moves earth, the woman sweeps air. Together they pull water out of the other, pull with the muscular ache of the living, hauling from the deep well of the body the rain-swollen, the flame-tipped, the milk-fed— all that cycles through lives moving, lives sweeping, water circulating between them like breath, drawn out of leaves by light.

The Man Moves Earth

BY CATHY SONG