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TAYLLOR JOHNSON

WATER IS RISING & EMERGENCY MEDITATION

tayllor johnson

WATER IS RISING & EMERGENCY MEDITATION

water is rising

So I can too

From the depths of the world’s beginning

She’s churning a song and a story on our shores

that we’ve never heard before

Some say she’s pleading

Others say she’s damning

I say

If she rises

I can too

If she storms and swells and

Sparkles on the horizon day and night

Without asking for permission

I can too

If she can take my prayers at the edge of a waterfall

And whisper her secrets at the edge of a stream

Let me be her boulder

Let me be her creek bed

Let me be the cliffside she can glide on

I say

If water is rising to the occasion to meet me

Then I will meet her

Both hands submerged into the clear current

She is asking me to

SPEAK!

Emergency Meditation

My own babbling brook

Amongst an elevator song

Playing between university floors

While I sit

The vending machine hums louder still

Around my babbling brook

Hiding away in the ceiling or walls

I do not know

There might be a serious water leak in this building

That prompted my babbling brook to find me

On the fifth floor

Alone

Where she started her dripping

pouring over the mossy rocks

the tired roots

and willing saplings in my mind

My own babbling brook

Escaped from my childhood memories maybe

to break through the city’s restlessness

To find me here

Amongst the noise

To bring me home

Tayllor johnson
artist

Tayllor Johnson is an artist, performer, educator, and founder of Sisterhood(verb), Inc. A published poet, she has been writing and performing her poetry and plays for over ten years. She is committed to using art to voice unspoken truths and guide people to discover and define their liberation. At Mount Holyoke College, where Tayllor received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology, she began the journey of defining sisterhood and its importance in her life. Pursuing her master’s degree, at the Center for Experimental Humanities at New York University, allowed her to expand on the intersectionality of community and arts integration in education, which led to her officializing her business, Sisterhood(verb), Inc., in 2020. Sisterhood(verb) Inc. is an innovative education consulting business, dedicated to curating safe spaces for Black women, women of color, and youth to be themselves, find themselves, and celebrate themselves through arts integration, community, education, creativity, and wellness. Since starting her business, Tayllor has been able to work with various educational communities and fully emerge in the holistic journey that is growing in entrepreneurship.