Longing for Dance, 11-15

 (third set of five 10-line poems, of a sequence of 20 on the theme of dance)

11.

Then there was the time –

how old was I? 19? 20? –

when I worked part-time,

evenings and weekends,

as a cinema usherette

for the filmed Swan Lake

with Nureyev and Fonteyn

(that ‘magical partnership’ the press 

said, truthfully). Magic and beauty 

repeated, for me, every night.

12.

Dancing

around the subject of dancing,

I find the tempo and 

gesticulations vary

according to the main

thrust of the desired

direction, the ultimate end.

This of course depends 

on mood, purpose, stamina –

and most of all the random!

 

13.

The journey from birth to grave,

is that a dance, do you think?

Or is it a slow, plodding march,

or maybe a crawl?

I like to think it’s a dance,

even when the limbs deteriorate.

It could be a dance with a gentle, 

lengthy rhythm, or perhaps 

only very tiny steps. So long as 

one still keeps going, it’s a progress.

14. 

I can’t be holding light

between my clumsy hands!

They are an old woman’s hands

(obviously, I being an old woman).

Light wants to dance, and does dance

out of my hands and across the gaps

between people; between me and 

other people. Watch it flicker and leap!

The dance of light then dips low: a ballerina 

gracefully saluting her enthralled audience.

15.

I am hungry. I am ardent.

I fling my arms. I am fierce. 

I dance by stamping on the ground.

I dance by lifting high my knees 

and my busy, flashing heels.

Oh, this is a ferocious dance!

We have built it together, we

who refuse to go quietly into a

respectable ageing. Let us make 

fools of ourselves, let us win!

See also Poems 1-5, and Poems 6-10.