This is the dance I learned
before my senses were obscured,
these the steps that send me, flying,
across the wild complexity of this stage.
.
And you, my handmaidens, are the mirrors
by which one’s sense of place and of time may be measured,
friendly faces in the crowd, the chorus,
whose function in this saga is to measure and observe.
What we do is not ritual, but play,
not solemnity, but a celebration,
our sense, that with nature, we are siblings,
conjoined, almost indistinguishable.
The small, sensitive, but inarticulate
creatures beneath our feet are one with us,
the difference, I fear, between me and my husband,.
he a step apart, for what he wants, above all, is control.
That is his nature. His is the hand that strummed,
whose music said, Dance, and I danced,
which said, Sing, and I sang. But what he did
was for himself, not for me, nor for the world
.
We are really the Antipodes.
And I can see a future,
very certain
separation of the ways.
He will deny it, of course, say we are made
for each other; complimentary as bee and flower,
will do everything in his power
to keep me from leaving.
And if I do, as is inevitable,
he will undoubtedly come after me.
Such are the errors of man-kind. Pride Pride.
Pride of possession is their predominant passion.
O my ladies,
let us dance; let us dance in a grass
as warm as feeling, cool as our determination
to do that which is required; heads beneath a well of stars,
toes in intimate contact with the earth;
and if the music you hear
is that of my husband, my erstwhile lover,
do not permit its perturbations to disturb you.