In a very special episode of There's a Poem in That, a former ballet dancer must override her own stroke-induced paralysis to meet Todd halfway between hemispheres.
It's an intimate exploration of nonverbal disability, in which Todd and Lisa demonstrate that "any dance worth doing is struggle…"
Click below to access a third-party case study of this special episode's impact.
The Poem
In Praise of Your Aphasia
for Lisa
What a beautiful dance you
dance here for us,
who sit in our
darkness,
programs in our laps.
What a raw, sensuous
tension you sustain
along the body’s limber
borders. How well you
remind us: any dance
worth doing is
struggle.
There must be a word
(French, feminine?) for
the mirror
behind the barre of the mind
beyond which
no stroke survivor sees. Seize, survivor, stroke — no,
seize again — & we
seize with you to survive her, too.
We
see her. We
watch you wake &
wick her.
All dance is séance,
flames a-flicker. You swirl
& swivel, unhinged. It’s
haunting.
On toe-tips,
fingertips, tip of
tongue,
it’s ghosts
whose unsung songs you conjure,
flaunting physical laws.
Do you
hear our one-
handed applause?
If you think there's a poem in your story, leave us a message on our Haiku, Hawaii, guest line, at 808-300-0449.
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