Elizabeth
©1990 Andrew Calhoun, unrecorded
I studied Tai Chi for two years in the late '80s with Elizabeth Wenscott. One day she said to me, "You're on a hero's path, but it's difficult for you, because you like to be invisible." It's a healing thing, to be understood. She was having a hard time getting recognition from her teacher, so I gave her this, from one of her students. Elizabeth founded the Tai Chi Center of Chicago. She died in 2014 at the age of 52.
Elizabeth
Is funny and serious
And she doesn't need you
She's got her own thing to do
Elizabeth
Taught me to move
And cleverly teased away
Years of misery
When Elizabeth speaks
The air gets cleaner
And the silence quieter
And time gets free
Elizabeth
Does her dancing
On a higher mountain
Than the judge can climb
And on that high mountain
There's not much company
But light everlasting
Where time is free