Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘ballet’

One Maleficent

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 11, 2022| 2 Comments »


            for my daughter
 
 
cheering the villain
in black pointe shoes—
her evil so magnificent

Read Full Post »

Watching My Daughter in The Nutcracker

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 19, 2021| 10 Comments »




Tonight I fall in love with the mirliton
in the blue and white tutu—the way
she leaps, the way she angles her arm.
Not that I didn’t love her before
when she was a soldier, when she
was a snowflake, when she was a bon bon
or an angel in frothy white fluff. But tonight,
more than anything, it is her smile
that makes me weep in row H.
Because it is real, her joy in the chassé,
the grande jeté, the pas de bourrée.
Because her joy is my joy. Because
I know what she’s danced through
to get to this stage where that smile
spreads across her face like the sunrise
the first morning after winter solstice—
an essential, growing light aware of the dark,
just learning what it can do.

Read Full Post »

On Point

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 12, 2018| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

Sewing the ribbons

onto point shoes for the first time

I again feel clumsy

 

in this art of parenting.

Angle the ribbons,

or stitch them on straight?

 

How far from the back seam

does the elastic go?

How snug the fit?

 

How secure the stitch?

It was not so long ago

I didn’t know how warm

 

the bath. How tight

the swaddle. How

to soothe when the babe

 

was unable to say

what was wrong.

So little has changed,

 

me in the late hours

puzzling over lack

of instructions,

 

wanting so badly

to do it right, wishing

for some elusive grace,

 

astonished by how enormous

the love, the ribbon

running through my fingers.

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: