Poetry Friday

The Dance - Sept. 1, 2023

Beloveds,

I was scrolling through FaceBook and saw this quote from an article in The Atlantic:

"Something wonderful is happening right under our noses. Actually, it’s happening to our noses, and the rest of our bodies as well. Every gravitational wave... is humming through the very constitution of the space you inhabit right now. Every proton and neutron in every atom from the tip of your toes to the top of your head is shifting, shuttling, and vibrating in a collective purr within which the entire history of the universe is implicated. And if you put your hand down on a chair or table or anything else nearby, that object, too, is dancing that slow waltz.” (Article called Ripples in Space)

Maybe there are more eloquent words to describe how everything is connected and yet this describes the constant chaotic churning (vibrations) of the universe as everything is in motion and brings with it "the entire history of the universe”! And,  then compares it to “dancing that slow waltz”. Within all the concerns or troubles we have, there is this patterned and deliberate slow waltz that is the center of it all. Beautiful to see something scientific be so spiritual.

This led to me thinking about how the Divine slips in among everything that is. Is the Divine the waltz partner, the center that slows us down to a beautiful dance while we flow with all that is in our lives? I wondered how love fit into this? And then, I wondered about one of my favorite words: tender. Tenderness among the chaos. 

Certainly the universe is not always tender or beautiful or loving — black holes swallowing whole stars that can not escape it’s fate - seems pretty violent. And yet, here we are in a life on this planet, charged to be tender towards one another by the Divine.

I was curious about what is involved in waltzing and how it looked. So, Google has this to say: "Before the Waltz, people danced around each other with little or no contact at all. As the dance started gaining popularity, it was criticised on moral grounds due to its close-hold stance and fast turning movements. Religious leaders regarded it as vulgar and sinful. The dance was criticised to the point where people were threatened with death from waltzing. Due to its close-hold and quick rotations, Waltz was once named the 'Forbidden dance’", (Concert Vienna webpage). Leave it to religious people to ruin something fun.

Well, after that description, I had to watch a slow waltz for myself. I place this dance here so you can see a slow waltz for yourself. Do you want to be dancing around your life with little or no contact with the Divine? I don’t know about you, but I want to be in this “close hold stance” dance with the Divine - I can’t think of anything more beautiful, enticing, tender (or erotic) than dancing a slow waltz in the arms of the Divine. I can hear the Divine saying “I am here with you in the dance. Dance, my beloved, dance”. 

Jace

A Poem About Dance and the Hard Work of Transcendence

Aug. 4, 2023, printed in The New York Times

American Smooth
by Rita Dove

We were dancing—it must have
been a foxtrot or a waltz,
something romantic but
requiring restraint,
rise and fall, precise
execution as we moved
into the next song without
stopping, two chests heaving
above a seven-league
stride—such perfect agony
one learns to smile through,
ecstatic mimicry
being the sine qua non
of American Smooth.
And because I was distracted
by the effort of
keeping my frame
(the leftward lean, head turned
just enough to gaze out
past your ear and always
smiling, smiling),
I didn’t notice
how still you’d become until
we had done it
(for two measures?
four?)—achieved flight,
that swift and serene
magnificence,
before the earth
remembered who we were
and brought us down.

(Rita Dove’s 2004 poem “American Smooth”. It’s a poem about a peak moment between two dance partners. It’s about discipline, mastery, endurance and pain — all in the service of a transcendent instant when the world falls away, when that pain is banished. A moment of letting go.)

shall we dance?

lonely moon
sits on top of the night sky
gazing deep
above the land we stand on

the ballroom is empty
a spotlight shines upon her
she takes her first step
you follow...

both of you dance till morning
the orchestra reached their crescendo
daylight breaks into the windows
and she dissipate with your arms around her




you really want her back so badly
do you?

Shadeshift, allpoetry.com, Sept. ’21