Dance of Life

I rather like the life of a poet. Traveling and writing; telling stories and meeting new people. Dancing. Okay, perhaps that last one is not necessary to be living the life of a poet, but it is necessary for my poetry.

For me, dancing is the missing connection between hearts. Sure, we can speak words which allude to feelings, and we can hold hands as though treating the other as a transfusion, but dancing creates a rhythmic connection as though the body is moving within the beat of a universal heart – add to this that two bodies are moving together connected by hands to make a circle unbroken – dancing is alchemy for transmuting music to movement through hearts powered by feet.

The common metaphor for life in today's culture is one which refers to life as a race. We are all trying to get somewhere the fastest. I'm still not sure towards what we are racing, but it promises to hit us with the casual snap of a broken ribbon. I am not so sure I want to know what is at the end. Races never really end. People are always running. Or training to be able to run that much faster than their opponent in the next race. What are we running from? To what are we running? Where does this all go? Why do we look so beat when we cross the finish line? I can't make sense of a metaphor in which little is left to interpretation. So, instead, I'd like to turn toward a different metaphor altogether. If one doesn't like the concept with which he is faced, one must invent new words or supplant the old ideas with one more fitting. So, I turn back the hands of the clock into a time less focused on time but more so on timing.

In the Middle Ages, the prominent metaphor for life was that of a dance. I feel as though this makes more sense because music is ephemeral. It will not last any longer than the vibration of a string, the stirring of air. Lungs power music as much as hands do. Music has a definitive ending point, but we can replay the song in our minds a million times over without – melodies get stuck in our minds like stories. Music ends, but it can be replayed, and no one wins at the end of the song except for those who danced. If life is a dance, then we only need to tap into timings in order to tap into time. Feet don't have to move, but when they do to a rhythm, a beauty emerges. And it expands in every direction.

Life is not linear.

Music is not linear.

Dances are not linear, and music is interpretation rather than command. A poet speaks in rhythm just as bodies speak in dance.

Races have a right answer and a wrong time.

Dancers need not apologize.

So don't apologize when your feet feel too tired to move, you are not running a race with points to its end; you are engaged in a dance where the universe holds your hand. Listen to the rhythm and fear not the end of the song; we all will be dipped, but this dip is one of beauty and is not to be feared because we will not be dropped. We will not be dropped. We need not compete to get underground faster.

And I will remember to live, breathe, love, and dance.

Time Flies

Today marks the day that we officially have seen more days in the year than we have left to see. Days unfold. Hours fall out like loose leaf paper. But at least we have a chance to write our hours into poems if we so choose before they're crumpled and lost.


Sometimes I think hours fall off like dandelion seeds when we make wishes. Perhaps an intention gets intertwined with the seeds, and our wishes intermingle with earth when the pods finally find somewhere to land. Maybe this makes the wish come true for the fields. Then someday when someone lays his or head down to name the clouds, maybe a new dandelion will whisper that wish into his or her ears, and that person will be inspired to do something.

Sometimes, I think that the wishes we cast upon far away stars don't just burn to a crisp. I think that our wishes, like the dandelions, plant themselves in the stars and then wait.

Sometimes, I think you are the amalgamation of someone's forever ago wishes come to fruition.

Sometimes, I think we are all someone's forever ago wishes come to fruition.

I know that we all used to be stars. The earth on which we walk used to be 10 million degrees or more. I find it fascinating that far less degrees separate humanity from universe. All love is falling for stars.

Dandelions take our wishes and plant them in fields which used to be stars. We take our wishes and plant them in stars which used to be one mass until the Big Bang separated itself from itself. If wishes grow in fields like seeds, imagine how bright wishes must grow in stars. Unfortunately, stars have to die in order to add what they were to the universe like dandelions have to die for us to make a wish, and we are composed of the bodies of stars, so maybe trillions of years ago something made wishes and the stars held them inside until they died and had their wish-intermixed molecules flying through the universe to plant themselves on planets like dandelions plant their wish-filled seeds in fields.

I like to think I'm something's trillion year old wish come to fruition. I like to think that the best things are worth the wait, and I like to think that even as time passes like seeds falling from dandelions, we still do something with it just by existing. Maybe that's being optimistic, but I'd rather think that my presence is both a wish fulfilled, and way to better the universe's future.

Even if I am merely making wishes with my spare time.