Note: Iris is the goddess of the rainbow from Greek mythology and a messenger between the Gods and humans. She is depicted as a woman with wings so beautiful they could light up a dark cavern. The poem, below, draws on the mythology of Iris as a messenger and envisages the messages she carries to be specks of imagination. This poem tells of a time gone by when the certainty of sightedness dominated. All creativity, wonder, and uncertainty were hunted down and destroyed by definition and “knowledge.” Fearing for her life, Iris – imagination –had to hide in plain sight to survive. Only those who moved through the world in blindness could see her colours. This poem tells of a woman, the blind traveller, who was daring enough to move blind into the uncertainty of blindness and found imagination. This blind traveller is said to have danced on the arch of the rainbow with Iris leaving strokes of colors in the sky bringing imagination back to the world. These words, a loving caress from mothers to daughters, tells of the importance of dance in the world 200 years from when imagination returned. We dance, as did she, the daring blind traveler, in uncertainty so that we may receive Iris’ messages, the specks of imagination, so that creativity and wonder remain to this day.
On the Wings of Iris.
Devon Healey
The stories of the eyes told and retold.
Mouth; ears; hands; feet; generation after generation…
The stories of the eyes told and retold.
Little one, these words have traveled.
And, still, they go…
Mothers of mothers, of mothers of mothers have whispered to daughters…
What a joy!
What a privilege.
You.
You and me.
Me and you.
A rainbow of uncertainty passed through my breath, the warmth of many mothers, these words, this story, this dance now yours…
There was a time when imagination had to hide.
The uncertainty of her gifts, the rippling tangle of her movement as all the worlds colours swirled and spread – they wanted to capture her, they wanted to know!
Salivating eyes…
The sensual finality of sight, one of life’s greatest sorrows.
The insatiable hunger of the eye gorging on the beauty of the unknown – captured – seen through knowing.
She had to hide.
Ever hungry for more.
Ever starving for the sight, the taste, of what is there to be seen.
She had to fracture.
Shards of her beauty coursed through time.
Specks of her colours hidden in the clandestine perceptions of those who could feel.
Unspeakable …
For so long, she hid, in the shadows of sight unseen.
What a pity.
What a pity it was then…
To see.
What a waste.
All that potential, all that freedom lost to the image.
What a pity.
What a pity it was to be trapped in what is there.
To be seen.
How definite.
How cruel.
Shape and form defined as “what is” for all to see
The rhythm of our collective movement, our pleasure, compressed into the hum of static
Only noise.
How mundane!
Questions answered, so quickly defined and described.
Made to mean.
Told meaning of truth.
Reality,
Self,
Facts,
Other,
Told and seen, seen and told to mean.
She had to hide.
Movement, no longer painted with the colours of imagination, eroded into mere moving,
No one danced.
Everyone was watching.
And then…
Someone dared to move, to go, to travel into the danger of uncertainty, blind.
They journeyed, blind, into blindness.
A labyrinth of colour unfolded.
Vulnerability.
She hid no longer.
The shards of her beauty twisted and curled with every move.
Veins of red extend into elevations of orange thundering yellow!
Specks of green rotate into hurricanes of blue evaporating in a violet haze.
The notes of the prism, the unshakable certainty of sight, mingle with the movement of the blind traveler.
The contrapuntal rhythm of their steps lingers, like a specter. The dual haunting of the ease of sight and the unease of blindness unhinged the cardinal directions.
The danger of imagination, the feel of freedom, spread…
Images faded into the music of stories.
Touch!
To be in touch, to feel, to journey into understanding.
We dance our unending story, little one.
We learn to dance before we walk.
We learn to fly before we run.
The rhythms of our imagination join in the dance of the blind traveler.
Polyrhythmic is the sound – the feel – of freedom.
The colours of my whisper in your ear,
We dance – we fly!
The stories of the eyes told and retold.
Mouth; ears; hands; feet; generation after generation…
The stories of the eyes told and retold.
Little one, these words have traveled.
And, still, they go…