Summer Dance

Posted on August 4, 2017 by

18 Comments

Champoeg State Heritage Area, Oregon. August, 2016

 

    We dance on wooden gym floors, where aluminum foil-covered, cardboard stars are hung above our heads by fishing wire. The dancehall, a rearranged sports facility. Basketball hoops recoiled, painted lines and circles below feet. The gym, a sacred grassland. We dance only in socks. The floor mustn’t be damaged. Piles of shoes in the hallway.

     We mimic leaves who aren’t ready to dance. At least, not in this moist heat. But, we’ll dance. There’s no doubt about that. Some of us will fall into the beauty of a meadow and others into the roughness of the streets. Perhaps, a mixture of the two. Homecomings take different angles in the air, especially when the rain returns. It’s all about where we land, while we are busy landing. For we will not know where we have landed until our toenails turn the color of autumn.

     In the air, the falling, all movements are alike. The moves are internalized, calculated swirls. The dance is a flutter of freedom, a means to escape the body, while being so much in the body. The names attached to the fall are historical. Set in place. There’s a waltz, a sugar plum fairy, a two-step. We copy them without knowledge of their existence.

     This summer, with hotness clamping down upon us, we seem torn from bran and germ. We are sifted, churning a pirouette into the soil. We look like crumbly croissants, stirred by heated air into flakes. Still we search for a meadow. We know the moves by heart.

Category: Poetry, PortraitsTags: , , , , , , , , ,

18 Comments on “Summer Dance”

  1. Homecomings take different angles in the air, especially when the rain returns. It’s all about where we land, while we are busy landing. For we will not know where we have landed until our toenails turn the color of autumn.
    Blown and buffeted, too busy watching the runway to enjoy the flight. We remember how the names happened to us, yet how, or are we embedded in the names’ sense of place?

    I enjoyed my own waltz down the cosmic radio’s timeline. Thank you.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Oh my goodness I love this. I could see everything you were talking about, and your style is gorgeous! It sounds like poetry coming off the page!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Exquisite. I love the sense of being “other” like a leaf while feeling the commonality between humans and the dance. Beautiful picture of the leaf.

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Mmm… The Texas heat doesn’t seem so bad. Enjoyed this dance quite a bit. Loved my dance while strolling during my lunch break at work enjoying a surprisingly mild breeze. Digesting delicious prose, renewed, refreshed, ready to continue my responsibilities with sugar plum faries dancing in my head. Love comming here.

    Liked by 2 people

  16. I’ve written about falling, dancing leaves, but you made me imagine I am a leaf. I started thinking of how I fluttered to where I am. I’ve certainly felt the wind! Maybe I’ll make good mulch? Love the picture colors and textures; I had to go back and study it a couple times.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Some very fine moments in your creation, Elan. I especially loved, “It’s all about where we land, while we are busy landing. For we will not know where we have landed until our toenails turn the color of autumn.” ❤

    Liked by 4 people

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