The Dancing Years

 

Around and around the circle,

slow dancing in opposite directions,

we meet each other’s eyes and sing, 

then spin to arrive at our next partner,

and greet her in turn. Our hands lift,

move softly in the air near each other’s hair.

Gazing in the eyes finding ours, we intone:

‘I see an angel above your head …

and she’s taking you in her care.’

***

‘Yes,’ said Katherine, years ago, 

‘You will sing and dance for the Goddess!’

I couldn’t believe, but it did come true.

I was the girl with no song in her voice,

I was the girl without dancing feet –

until I met the Goddess, and we embraced.

‘There are no mistakes here,’ said my sisters 

in the Circle. That gave me freedom:

gradually gave me ease and grace and flow.

***

Now I hear myself singing in tune,

I watch my body move in the steps,

I see an angel near.

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day Twenty-Four.

 '... write a poem that involves people making music together, and that references – with a lyric or line – a song or poem that is important to you.'

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #179 : Starting over (Again and Again). This wasn't written for the prompt, but over the course of my life there have been many attempts at singing and dancing, repeated failures to achieve tune, rhythm, etc. – and many, many times of giving up ... but not quite forever.  And finally, in my old age, it happens!

Torch-bearing

 

We Goddesses of Shining Light – who do not

claim to be ourselves divinities, only

that we seek to embody, as best we might,

Her good qualities –

have been slowly ageing, over all these years

of meeting and sending out our love as light

to the whole community, and thence the world.

Now we’re old and few.

We no longer dance in circle when we meet,

nor sing to Her, but still we breathe in, breathe out

a flood of light, which first we see as a star

and then as our torch

beaming wherever needed. We have become

a small circle of elders, the grandmothers

who, someone on facebook said, are needed now.

Well then, here we are!

How will you use us, world, before we leave you?

That is not ours to know or even to ask.

It is enough that we meet, as do other

small wisdom circles.

The world has no listening for our wisdom.

We are wise enough to understand this fact,

wise enough to know our only task: send light,

continue sending.

This is loosely based on the Sapphic stanza (aka Sapphic ode). I was inspired by Rajani Radhakrishnan's recent use of the form. Named after Greek poet Sappho, this form (in its 'lesser' version) has 38 syllables in four lines in a pattern of 11/11/11/5, which I have followed. However, I have ignored patterns of long and short syllables which are also classically used.

Written for Friday Writings #165 at Poets and Storytellers United, in which we are asked to use the word 'torch' in a piece of writing.

Also sharing at dVerse Open Link Night for 19 June 2025

Accepted for publication in Krisis: Poetry at the Crossroads, 2026 anthology from dVerse.

Crone Conversations

We elder daughters of Divine Mother,

meet in circle today for earth healing

and to explore the concept of ether

(spirit). This soon leads us to revealing

stories – which others may be concealing –

of life existing beyond the physical:

our own journeys into the mystical,

and messages, even visitations,

from loved ones who have now left this little

span of a life, this sphere of sensation.

‘So why do we need this meat sack?’ one asks. 

‘I love bodies,’ I say, ‘even this one,

now ageing.’ ‘It’s not for serious tasks 

you came in,’ she decides, ‘but to have fun.’ 

‘Yes!’ I say, ‘and this earth, under this sun,

I am so in love with … this planet, now

so troubled.’ We sober, wondering how

its many afflictions may find surcease.

Before leaving, we renew the deep vow

to be, in our lives, messengers of peace.

Written for Friday Writings #98 at Poets and Storytellers United. We were invited to write about one or more of the four classic elements: earth, air, fire and water, or perhaps the fifth: spirit, aka ether. This poem deals with that last one. (The form is a dizain, doubled.)