Boy Skipping
You could set music to this.
The slack string arcs into a taut loop,
then a stutter-step and he’s in the mix,
amid the kinetic arch and self-sprung rhythm,
high-altitude treble and the whipping beat,
with the grain of him, springing on the spot.
He leaps and bounds from the same spot
as if nothing else matters to him but this.
In musical terms, his timing is on the half beat;
all echo, and weightless, within the loop.
Ascending, he alternates the rhythm,
and gravity goes rebounding in the mix.
Here, he tunes his mode to the mix
of time and movement, and there on the spot,
he feels his way by sense and rhythm.
At times he thinks he was born for this.
Yet what can be made of a standalone loop,
and who on earth is he trying to beat?
Not a soul! His mind is set to his own heartbeat.
‘Buckle down’, he muses, while in the mix;
working a passage of air within the loop.
Descending, he returns to the spot,
impelled by pulse and impulse; bound by this
fall of tension, and rising rhythm.
Still, it’s by feel he enters the rhythm—
with a basso’s sense to the moving beat,
though getting in sync; harmonising this
balance of motionrequires an ebbing mix
of an inward flow, equilibrium on the spot.
To invoke the rhythm, you must work the loop.
But to stay in the moment within the loop
is another matter, you need more than rhythm
and a fair bit of chi to hit the sweet spot.
To enter stillness—to skip to its beat—
is to be conjoined by an artless mix
where the self, in flight, is open to this
free-flown rhythm, and that airborne beat.
Time’s on loop when you’re in the mix.
You are spot-on to think you are born for this.
