Dance

For whatever reason, I've been going back through a lot of my old poetry. Maybe it's to avoid working on the novel; I'm not sure. Either way, the poem I present to you today, Dance, is probably what I would consider if not my best, one of my top three for certain. I remember sitting outside in Ohio on a cool fall evening, smoking cigarettes with my notebook and just writing line after line. There was a breeze through the trees, which was probably what inspired it, but once I get it going it all flowed out very smoothly. I'm very proud of this one; I just hope other people don't think it's awful.

Dance

The dreams I see script two of us
as I take your hand
and offer a dance through the cool spring breeze.
The treetops bow to us,
boughs giving permission
and offering to reach our misgivings
to an unknown heaven,
fun and fancy-free
as we jovially waltz
amongst our kindred sapling souls.

The full-bloom leaves now cheer us on
with a quiet murmur
as the warm wind blows our hair back.
Our faces unhidden,
the look in your eyes drives me
to spin faster as we dance dangerously
on the brink of sickness,
our stomaches telling us to slow ourselves
even as we push harder on
to a point from which we know
we can never turn back.

And so the leaves tire of our waltz,
a waltz which we slow
to a slow shuffle through the fallen piles.
The fallen voyeurs beg our ceasing
with a cold crackle and a crisp death-rattle
as we forge forever on,
heedless of their warnings
of a frozen future buried deep within our hearts.
We feel the cool wind begin to blow,
see it banish our fallen nay-sayers
as we stubbornly carry on that which we know
is doomed to crawl until it stops.
We remember the warmer weather,
the trees applauding their approval,
and we ignore the desolate landscape
growing among us.
There is only you and I.

What to become of this but unabashéd snowfall?
An innocence muffling our steps and begging us retreat.
Slowing us to nothing but two shivering bodies
unable to heat the other and wondering.
This long embrace, grown tired and awkward,
neither remembering how to lead with steps
that always seem one step ahead and out of our grasp.
The naked trees no longer can support
those misgivings they once held up as a sacred offering.
They are handed back to us gently but firmly,
cutting us with their brittle claws and slowing our final steps.
Buckling our minds with renewed doubt
as to where our feet can possibly take us next.
I can see your eyes again as the wind calms itself
and I can see there is no longer you and I.
Just you.
Just I.