These words are not for everybody— Neither is this voice— Neither am I. But listen now for inspiration, liberation, a pointing back to the joy of being alive, the rich buttery joy of it, even in its pain, awkwardness, self-consciousness, fear; even in loss, in grieving. We’re alive! We’re alive! is the chant of every being here on Earth, here with us, tumbling with us in this grand circus, colliding, exploding, raining down upon this Earth as streamers, hailstones, sheets of water, pooling, splashing, bouncing, landing in the open mouths and outstretched arms of people who have left their workplaces, stepped away from office, factory, & field to remember that our everyday smallness casts great huge shadows across the theater of the cosmos, each one of us. To remember! To be bathed, caressed, drenched in this knowing, until the laughter of dancing gods has chased away all forgetting; until any story too small to reflect the smile of vastness pops like a popcorn kernel, turns inside out: its walls become grasping fingers; its locked doors, wide-open eyes. Let us sweep through all the forgotten places in ourselves like a warm breeze; let us gather the shattered idols, rebuild their staring faces & thousand-thousand arms with gold lacquer, steel wire, silk thread; let us stand up yet another old-new body Who is all of us & has never been seen before— ___ *April 2021*