This Season, MZD has commissioned poets to respond to the work created by dance artists. Thinking about dance through poetry adds a different perspective to the work and opens up conversation between artists in their creative practice.

Reuben Brinker’s poem Starchild is in response to Stephanie Patsula’s new work, blur.

blur is March 26 – 8PM MT

Starchild
By Reuben Brinker

Hello to you, Starchild,

remarkable creature conjured by the cosmos.

A testament to the wonder of creation,

Mother Nature’s masterwork,

a love letter to herself.

Infinitesimal, ephemeral, incredible.

Light years from here,

back some billion years,

the sum of your parts was spawned

in the heart of a star gone supernova.

How impossible a fact,

that it all coalesced into you.

Born, now reborn, in these bones.

Can you feel them?

The stars that remain in your veins?

Your heart drums along to the song of the universe,

key in its rhythms,

pushing pure life,

redder than Mu Cephei and gifted from impossible giants,

to every mortal cell of your earthly vessel.

Neurons fire in formations of new constellations,

every memory a new star in your own sky,

all merging to form the ethereal shape of you.

Your mouth speaks the language of mortal creatures,

but your body speaks the language of old gods.

The first language.

The oldest language.

To move is the only manner of speech the stars have ever spoken.

You speak like the stars,

and the stars speak like you.

Starchild,

Paint the constellations of your consciousness in the dialect of sleeping deities.

Sway in the same song Sirius has sung for centuries.

Turn your earthly visage to the heavens and draw upon those otherworldly energies,

hands raised palms up to welcome the sun, the stars, the universe.

Feel the energy flow down from the sky and into your psyche,

flooding your very soul.

Plant your feet firm to the ground and draw up through your heels the vitality of Terra,

feel it stream through your system,

invigorating, rejuvenating,

touching and empowering every individual cell.

Savour the sensations a moment.

Hold them tight but tender, and then let go.

Feel both spirits spark in your heart,

like a fire to a fuse,

and let it rush through you, bursting out

and out

and out.

And let it move you, let it tell your body how to bend.

And let it speak for you, let it read out the stories in your head.

Feel yourself become pure love,

pure life,

and let your body sing.