Love Note: The Dance

Dear Ones,

Two things come to mind when I read this poem by C.K. Williams.

One is about ourselves.  During this time of the year when many of us are laboring to change some part of ourselves (usually our physical selves because we’re not on par with our perception of sufficient attractiveness), this poem reminds us of our inherent loveliness…that which is easily overlooked in this world that too often glamorizes lower-tier beauty.

The other thing these words bring to mind is the lens through which we behold the world, understandably darkened these days with the soot of chaos, division, and injustice.  I like the reminder that, despite these disappointments (seemingly all too frequent in recent times), there are embedded gifts as well – even through our shadowy lens – that harken us to remember that inherent beauty persists and prevails.

Peace to each of you beauties,
Lori

The Dance

 
A middle-aged woman, quite plain, to be polite about it,
and somewhat stout, to be more courteous still,
but when she and the rather good-looking, much younger man
she’s with get up to dance,
her forearm descends with such delicate lightness, such restrained
but confident ardor athwart his shoulder,
drawing him to her with such a firm, compelling warmth, and
moving him with effortless grace
into the union she’s instantly established with the not at all
rhythmically solid music in this second-rate cafe,

that something in the rest of us, some doubt about ourselves, 
some sad conjecture, seems to be allayed,
nothing that we’d ever thought of as a real lack,

 nothing not to be admired or be repentant for,
but something to which we’ve never adequately given credence,
which might have consoling implications about how we
misbelieve ourselves, and so the world,
that world beyond us which so often disappoints, but which
sometimes shows us, lovely, what we are.