heart leaps – an #improv #poem

As part of #Quest2015, Pam Houston provided this prompt: “Sit quietly and ask yourself, what in the last day or week or month has made your heart leap up? Not what should, or might or always had, but what did. Make that list. Be honest, even if it surprises you. Keep the list with you this month. Add to it when it happens. Train yourself to notice. Then ask your self today, how can I arrange my life to get more of those heart leaps in it?”

My first impulse was to take several days to develop my list and mold it into a piece of prose that would explain why these things make my heart leap and how I could design my year to engage with these sorts of things. But then, I sat down with pen and paper. I remembered that I am an improvisation artist. I recalled that my art is poetry (and music) created spontaneously. And this is what I wrote.

Heart Leaps

• Vocal harmonies
• Rolling over in bed in the morning to find my beloved there next to me
• Snowfall
• Soft rain
• A resonant voice dancing above an instrumental accompaniment
• Sunrise filtering through the trees
• Running through a field
• Genuine yet unexpected affirmation
• A magical chord in the middle of a piano improv
• After weeks or months apart, the voice of a friend
• A beaming smile on a child’s face
• Technology that works
• Dancing
• The incredible, reflective light of the moon illuminating the night
• Applause
• Seeing the waterfall at the bottom of the trail after listening to its voice all along the way
• The wind whistling through my helmet as my bicycle accelerates down a hill
• My love (she is beautiful)
• My love (I know how to show the love I have to give)
• My love

Have More

I open my heart
I am
I open my heart
I do
I open my heart
I create
I open my heart
I construct
I open my heart
I love

~ Spontaneously created by Stan Stewart
~ Copyright © 2014 by muz4now, inc. All rights reserved.