Among Writers

             Who could know the consequences of a pink plastic tablecloth,

pastries on little fancy dishes, windows bellowing in light
and strangers sitting under a white ceiling?

Who could know the consequences of the small voices
asking for room on the fresh page sitting before each writer?
The room smells of cinnamon, coffee and perfume.

I can hear the breathing of writers.
They breathe deep as they spread themselves upon the page.
They dip into ink pots of their souls
and make tiny dancers of their pens.

The table is a stage and each a ballerina for a pen.
The melody is heard, it is silence.
From their movements, the shape of their dancer bodies,
music is written.
A mountain is climbed.

Courage is the lover
and away they ascend to dance in the clouds.
Writers, the dreamers they are, don’t believe what you see.
The creative fidget, the bangle bracelets
and lipstick  conceal the holy genius
who has found their feet upon a mystic ground,
singing in the silence.

It is a process,
a lonely motion
and down the dancers go into the well
and back up they rise to catch their breath,
dripping in the juice of creation,

the pulp of human living and down again they hit the vein,
plunge beneath the surface
swimming in the waters of their spirits.

Not a splash is made, not a resistant movement,
the flow has come and away they go.

And in their hands these writers carry all those they love.
They never leave anyone behind.
Their hearts are bigger than their sleeves.

Their hearts pound with intensity because
something has moved them.

The writers push off from every shoreline
with the heel of one hand
and reach into the unknown with the other.
Tiny dancers in their hands, big dreams in their ink.

They are dangerous people;
they draw upon the unformed and go beyond words
but speak languages unknown.


They are the revolutionaries;
they are the channels of freshness, newness and genius.
They are the canals of new birth

and when in their midst we can see the fog rising,
clarity is crystal
 a new day commences.


By Taryn Browne
www.WriteYourLifeStory.org
January, 2009