The big space 

You are standing at the end of a long narrow corridor
I see you from afar
this distance is further for my eyes than for my feet
as I approach you I realise you are naked ;

and this first nakedness is like a question.

The pressure of the space between us alters;
at first I accuse you of causing this
and then I realise it is I who am arriving with this pressure
and then I realise that it is you and I both
and then I am aware that we are linked and that makes me nervous
nervous for the fact that something has begun in which I will have to navigate
and I know
even though the walls of this narrow corridor are firm and guiding and reassuring
that maybe I will become forever lost in this navigation
and so I call to you for help
and you answer me only with your nakedness;

and this second nakedness is like a statement.

I cannot turn and exit the corridor
there are others behind me
I am like a fish caught by the gills
and the water of this corridor is made wetter
and more hermetic by the rectangular transparent wombs to either side of me.
I focus on them, staring intently
seeking refuge in their technological nature
which makes me notice even more the inevitable approach to your body;
Then I notice projections upon your body and breathe relief
the relief of a once famous painter who having faced a period of creative emptiness suddenly finds himself able to place colour once again upon the canvas;
I am happy to a disproportionate degree and continue along the corridor;
my sense of time within all this is like a diver's,
constantly being pressed and and suspended,
like the air inside a suction pump,
the blood within the arteries,
the thought within the imagination.

Now I am easy at the approach,
fascinated by the projections and their caressing of your skin, calm that they stain no further than the surface, that they will need no water to be washed off, washed away;
our eventual closeness carries no surprises,
the handshake of inevitable consequence;

and then
as I stand before you,
me in my confidence,
and you in your painted nakedness,
I am shocked once more and thrown into the edge of my self
for I am blocking the light
casting you into shadow
immediately peeling off the colours projected upon your skin
the cool dark shade I have brought you
once again makes you naked

and this third nakedness surpasses the other two,
for it contains no collusion,
we are simple, personal, and impersonal.
no room for fear, for excitement, for anything,
even as families of thoughts rush towards the situation to populate it.
I turn and walk onwards
invited and welcomed by the immense space of this room
and my discovery of it
and quietened by the wisdom of the layer of earth which has been laid for me to walk upon.

If at any moment in the corridor I had wished my body naked,
then now, even more, I wish to take off my shoes and bare my feet
and place the eyes of sensation between my toes
and be once again like a young boy and like an old man
with no heavy weight of maturity.

Later, much later, I cannot remember how much time has passed now,
I find myself standing before five other bodies entombed, enwombed, I am not sure which,
curled up in their confines, growing in their readiness.
And I find myself holding them instinctively
holding them like a young father who handles with both protectiveness and privilege;
and whose smile recognises both these attractions.

All is calm now and this peace is broken only by the future.
What will happen
what will happen next
how will I handle this future and the loss of this present

.....little do I know how well the spirits can grow,
in spite of the dusts of doubt all around them,
how well they can grow,....
how well they shift me, move me, halt me, fall me,
cry me, call me,
peel me, scar me,
think me, teach me
rock me, reel me
spin and dizzy me......

...joking constantly and
dancing with such serious joy towards approaching immateriality!

..............

Long after all this had passed, I was in the bus going home
or was it squashed in the back of a friend's car my thigh pressed against the thigh of another.......
anyway,
I looked down to my hand and realised something had been holding it all the while I had been in the big space,
accompanying me all the while,
and I looked down and I saw in my hand
a tiny group of minute musicians and heard the tinny echo of their music still ringing.

I thanked them and said I would buy them a drink when next we met.

© Julyen Hamilton

Written for an imagined choreographed by Apostolia Papadamaki. in Athens.