Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘ballet’

At the Senior Dance Recital

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 2, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
After fourteen years of pink leotards
and bobby pins, sewing ribbons
on pointe shoes and driving home late
from rehearsals, she dances tonight
with feline ease, confidence in the curl
of her fingers, grace in her glance
as she follows the gentle lift of her arm, 
and instead of trying to capture
this final recital in pixels, I bid myself
to be completely here, following her
leaps and feeling the fierce inner deluge 
of joy and pride and love and thrill
as for one last time she smiles 
from the stage and I see her as
the small white-winged angel who could 
barely plié, and I see her now as she soars,
almost flies, before, with a wave of her arm,
she bows, turns toward the wings, disappears.

Read Full Post »

At Her Last Dance Recital

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 14, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
It was not all for this one moment
when she stood alone on stage,
poised on her toe shoes, both arms
raised, her hands and wrists pulsing
in delicate waves—all the pink tights
and hair nets, blisters and tears
and long rehearsals for fourteen years—
it was not all for this winged moment
when Saint-Saëns played and she leapt
and pirouetted and pas de bouréed—
but this was the moment when I knew
with certainty that in a world of ache
and cruelty, we can change the world
and be changed by beauty.

Read Full Post »

And It Is

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 23, 2025| 10 Comments »

 
When you were small
I watched you dance
on the sidewalk, your arms
raised high as if inviting
the world to meet you,
rain and sun and all.
I watched you dance
in the living room draped
in hand-me-down dresses
and colorful scarves,
watched you dance
in small windowless rooms.  
Now you dance on the big stage,
floating in on pointe shoes,
your hair in a perfect bun
you pin up by yourself.
I wonder if every other mother
sitting in the dark also forgets
every second of her life save this one,
this second when you raise
your arm with such grace,
this second when your effortless smile
sweeps across the crowd,
this second when you are so shiningly
yourself, a radiant being dancing
for the love of it, as if this is
the only moment that matters.

Read Full Post »

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 »