like force like light like scent
A free write which became a poem about you and me and our power.
like force like light like scent
it cannot be seen or held this quiet power which lurks not, and prowls patiently in broad daylight. like force, it will press up on you unlike force it will not use arms like light, it will leak across you, silent. touching your skin without touching you brightening the space inside your skull like the potent summer sun like scent it will call on you to re—remember things you forgot you forgot This quiet power You will be moved before you realize you have shifted to something new and already found your footing there what is mine becomes yours too. — Schessa Garbutt 2025
Thank you to
for this incredible prompt (the title of the poem) yesterday at our collaborative session in preparation for a performance in July. I did not expect to open the meeting with creativity but it put us all in an expansive headspace, which I needed given the last few days in Los Angeles— state-sanctioned abductions, police violence, military occupation, and civil resistance in the face of it all. 99.9% of this (massive) city does not look like the images on the news and social media. We will not allow them to paint our protest as violent when the true violence is being enacted by the state as they disappear our neighbors. Fuck a Waymo.My reflections from this past weekend’s Parable of the Talents cypher continue to refract and multiply as friends and colleagues listen to the recording and respond with their own thoughts, and as the dust momentarily settles on the city. There is an air of collectivity and solidarity that I can see in the way Angelenos are carrying themselves this week. A cautious resolve, a calm knowing. What is that power in the face of military might and demagoguery?
On Saturday I mentioned the “quiet power” described in the Tao Te Ching and how Butler’s character, Olamina, embodies this. As our times parallel the not-so-fictional-now novel, I am forced to consider what power and talents I/we have in this space-time.
Describing that quiet power is one way of claiming it. I felt this power in the room on Saturday when time stood still and every mind was attuned to same wavelength. Ajani’s prompt immediately brought this to mind, since force, light, and scent are all intangible and yet incredibly powerful. Force could mean guns… or it could mean gravity— an inevitability, unfuckwithable. Light powers all life on Earth through photosynthesis at the start of our food chain. And yes, sunlight is strong enough to penetrate your skull and touch your brain. Scent is perhaps the most mysterious (or animal) of the three but we all know that a distinct smell will make you time travel instantly. Powerful stuff.
What is your quiet power? Quiet does not mean timid— some of the quietest animals are the deadliest hunters. And what is power? What power might we find when we don’t champion fists, bullets, and batons as the only definition?