Beginners

A Poem

for Beth Bruno

We put on the Youtube video, beginners Tai Chi -

she laughs and says it is too slow, and she can’t be that slow,

and I smile at her energy, her youth, her joy. We follow the motions, each one so flowing, so calm.

I think about how we have come to equate fast or rapid or frantic with things that count more-

like the faster we do something, the more productive it is said to be, the more more and more we have, the better it is — faster, more, faster, more-

when really, if something has been around for centuries and centuries and for what might feel like all human time

typically this thing is a slow thing a simple thing and what is more productive, more valuable than this graceful

lasting.

©Jenny Justice. All Rights Reserved.

Jenny Justice, Poet. Author of Love in the Time of Climate Change and Reveal. You can read more of her poetry at Justice Poetic. Sign up for her newsletter here.