For Charlotte Jarvis
ballet of the unseen gathers into itself
unseen suffering and the unseen joys.
the dance is unnoticed.
the indigo moods of women.
and the hidden tangents of growth.
lost dreams of street corners;
and the secret angles of trees.
movements lost in the long history of dance.
to celebrate the unseen poetry of movement is its hope.
the shift and dazzle of marketplaces;
the stillness of the temple where the goddess whirls;
the politics of the powerless who sing strength with their taut bodies.
and the electric arabesques of the prayers for truth…
it helps to have an anchor even if it’s symbolic.
dance hangs upon a thread of hope.
all that movement held by a gaze of love.
oh, to start a new dance across the world
choreographed by the spirit of integration
to dream of such liberation
is why i work with gravity and sunlight
and moonwind, and tidelift;
earthturn and relativity.
quantum motions.
notations of spirit.
footleaps and breath.
the way a dancer manages her fall
into gifts of freedom.
to write dance the way one writes poetry.
to write poetry the way one writes dance.
our motion and stillness.
our masks and our faces.
the thoughts you cannot think.
the dreams you cannot dream.
that which only a mask can see.
lost chlorophyll of feet walking across a field.
womb of the tree.
the dancer in meditation
before jagged lines of a twig.
the unseen dance in a dancer’s meditation.
the stillness of the mask that pulls a child across a field.
seasons in a garden with the trees still.
and the mask dreaming
and the footsteps retreating.
the playground of the world.
all our lives an infinite improvisation.
twirling and being reborn.
dying and then resurrecting
at the foot of the tree.
the single tree that spreads its branches in our souls.
the great world tree.
and the return
and the study
and the starting again
from first position.