Scapula Fly

The Template
Scapula fly.
I know this because I dipped a string in black paint, then I carefully tied it around my nude chest and back.
Slowly, I moved one shoulder up as high as it would go.
Deliberately, I lowered it far down.
I did the same with the other side.
I arched my shoulders backwards, breasts pointed to the sky.
With great care, I hunched forward, concave, fallen in on myself.
As if doing tai chi, I twisted far to the left, then again to the right.
Each of these scapular movements recorded a black path on my skin.
At last, I rested and observed the dark designs on my back.
Stunned, I saw wings, the swoops and curves that allow flight.
Each one of us carries the imprint of transcendence.
As we daily move our muscles, we enact a great desire.
Our bones keep this secret template alive, available and exercised.
I scanned my skeleton with my inner eye, thanking it for symbolic and for ambulatory life.

Beneath the Template
Under the skin, the two shoulder blades seemed to shine with a blue-green color.
I asked them to speak and they said, “We are the sky that reflects the earth. You already know that with us, you can fly. We will take you as high as you wish, in your art, your song, your writing, your dance, your union with the divine. Use us to go wherever you want.”
My mind traveled below the turquoise bone surface into the busy interior, the marrow, the core of creation.
Juicy colors abounded, the blue old cells, the yellow transforming cells, the red working cells, the white helper cells.
Heaving with vital life employment, new cells were born, the old absorbed and recycled.
They reminded me of my drawings, paintings, songs, stories, and dances,
Some of them unlovely.
When I revisited fragments of each, some became a searing red, like a sustained high note in a sutra chant.
Occasional efforts were gruesome, mutations.
Sometimes, I gave them a skull-grin, for they were absurd enough to use, of new genetic value.
I kept the attempts coming.
The process was to try again, to keep core energies bubbling,
To provide inner lift so scapula could fly.

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