heavy head uplifted, I do not close the book

Last night we danced "The Loon" for the second time. The piece of paper I had been eyeing, was snatched up by G, and when she read it, I knew it was my line for the evening too. I chose my own, and it too spoke to me but not as much as

 with his heavy head uplifted he calls out. 

My line was, 

 I do not close the book.

My thoughts and my body responded to both lines in the poem, as though they were my own. After all, the words are all ours for the taking and G sweetly said, I could "have" hers as well. My body felt a dance of hopefulness, rising up with, as the music crescendoed. 

My thoughts and my body explored the ways that we can be present for those in our lives, how we hold each other up at challenging times, as well as lean into each other during times of joy. How do you listen to the quiet calls out of your loved one, even if he is whispering his calls. When our heads are heavy, we don't have to hold them up alone. We can whisper our needs or shout them out, with hopes of being heard. We can reach out, and trust, that we are not alone in our struggles, although sometimes it feels as such. It is a learning to ask for help. Our society dictates self sufficiency, and does not praise us for needing, but how could we sustain our lives without needing, support, reaching, interdependence? As it is said, 

"Joy shared is twice the joy. Sorrow shared is half the sorrow."

And so I listen, I try to sit with the quiet, in order to hear the very soft whispers, imperceptible at times. I hear them. The road doesn't seem smooth, the journey doesn't feel even or easy, but I can travel it none the less, knowing that I can help hold up the heads of the people in my life, and remember, that I too do not have to hold my head up alone. I read on, travel on, live on, the story continues,  I do not close the book..........

The Loon    ~ Mary Oliver

Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive strikes me from sleep, and I rise from the comfortable bed and go to another room, where my books are lined up

in their neat and colorful rows. How

magical they are! I choose one and open it. Soon I have wandered in over the waves of the words to the temple of thought.                                            

And then I hear outside, over the actual waves, the small, perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake, and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out to the fading moon, to the pink flush swelling in the east that, soon, will become the long, reasonable day.                                                 

 Inside the house it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight in which I am sitting.

                             

Neither, for a long while, do I read on.

 I do not close the book.