Tension and flow

Muscles tense

Eyes flicker in concentration

Not looking at what’s before them

But into a deeper space

Sometimes it feels like plowing a river

Upstream

Sometimes the flow overwhelms all

And we are swept toward the sea

Liquid eddies, wends and strikes out

Across the page

Drop by drop, letter, word,

Pools and dries into into sentences, paragraphs

Like Naked swimmers lying on rocks

We try to arrest the headlong-ness of it

Nat’s wiry muscles quiver with 16 sets of thrashing reins

Karen is a serene tempest, a dervish of picturebooks,

Each of us also struggles

To bring out what is deep-buried

To hammer memories, feelings, ideas

Into recognizable shapes on paper

And are warmed by the effort

We exchange, feel the rhythm in the waves

Smell the salt air as we flow wider and smoother

Until we arrive at the sea of young faces

Frothy energy pounding the shore

With so often naught to show

Or, more often, much to show

But naught to tell,

But we help them learn to flow

Crest, swirl, leap, plunge,

And even crash, liquid and blue

Into themselves.