Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘dancing’

The Ask

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 28, 2023| 2 Comments »

Among your duties, pleasure is a thing that also needs accomplishing.
            —Tony Hoagland, “The Word”
 
 
Perhaps it looked like I was dancing,
but I was being danced, was being twirled
by some great mystical spinning wheel
turning the straw of my thoughts into gold.
What a gift to have a body, to be alive
on a night when the sun is warm
and the grass is green and the mountains
are not yet tinder dry and the music is joyful
and the minutes slip through the hours
like page after page of happily ever
and there is no imp to be seen, just
the glory of brass shining in the air
and the miracle of hands clapping
as if applause is the only response that makes sense,
and the only thing the world asks of me
is to love it.

Read Full Post »

One Eventual

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on May 21, 2023| 8 Comments »

after fifty years of spinning
I learn standing still
is another way to dance

Read Full Post »

The Morning After

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 7, 2023| 8 Comments »

Though I knew it was a dream,
I thrilled to see you and your sister
tap dancing together,
performing in a bowling alley of all places,
each of you standing in front of your own lane,
both of you smiling, your arms scissoring in unison,
your bodies tilted forward, your legs kicking back,
the bright tap, tappity, tappity, tap of metal on wood,
your movements perfectly synchronized.
Then off you both danced down the lanes,
flapping and turning and leaping and shuffling,
two glorious blurs as you traveled toward the pins,
long legs flying, arms extended, your faces lit up,
no music but the rhythm in your feet.
I watched you both, breathless, thinking, I love this dream.
I love it even more this morning after,
still lying in bed, eyes still closed,
heart full of wonder, cells pulsing with love.
I keep unwrapping the dream like the gift it is.
There are some who would say I’m unlucky.
I know I am wildly blessed to have known you so closely,
blessed to love you and your sister,
blessed to have been changed by you both,
blessed to know your agony and your beauty,
blessed to know by heart the sound your feet make
as they dance across this world.  

Read Full Post »

It Did Not Look Useful, But

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 16, 2022| 6 Comments »




for an hour we danced
in the tiny kitchen
and sang with Dolly,
our voices braided
like eager vines,
and for that hour
I smiled and swayed
and I felt such spaciousness—
like a lost girl in a fairy tale
who has walked through dark woods
and arrived in a glade
with sunlight streaming
and flowers and bird song,
and though she’s still lost,
for this moment she’s safe,
not only safe, but happy,
truly deeply happy,
and when she reenters
the cold, dark woods,
as she must,
a bit of the shine
has twined into her.
Even now, I feel it,
the radiance,
how it shimmies
just like we did
beside the old oak cupboards,
how it glitters in the dark,
how it moves.

Read Full Post »

One Over the Loudspeaker

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 20, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

and suddenly I’m singing

in the cereal aisle,

unable to turn the music up

and dancing anyway—

the words spin me

like old friends,

My older self looks back

at me and says,

that’s right,

move it sister

while you still hear

the music, while you still

can dance.

Read Full Post »

One Missing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 12, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

 

dancing alone

in the kitchen—

when a memory

steps on my foot

I rush to kiss it

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: