Will you dance for me, I asked you,
At our first encounter, Imagining a ritual
You might enact, Within the fantasy, We wove.
No, you said, I do not dance
And in my mind
I saw at once a languid presence
Disdaining movement, Self-display.
It was a whim to be unsatisfied,
I thought.
And yet we danced, Both then and after
The dance of subtle interplayed emotion.
The dance of passionate embrace
The dance of wit
The dance of conversation
Allusive and reflective
The dance of painful revelation
Harsh dissent, Of censure
Of regret
The dance of hopefulness
The dance of love.
We danced.
We danced.
And every step would mark out other steps,
Until the dance seemed endless
In its time and form.
And when i came then
To that place of fate
The place of meeting
I saw so many dancing
And i gazed upon them.
The time soon passed
For our appointed meeting
You would not be found.
I let myself descend to dream
To reverie,
Idly watching those before me
Composing the account
I would attempt to render you
Of how i came
An angel from the skies
To be with you
But did not find you
After all.
Then, after all
After all had been concluded in my mind
I turned a moment, And saw a shadow leaving me
So quickly, That i could not follow
Or identify, Where it had gone.
At once, I knew
That you were present still.
This place of people dancing
Was again, A space
Of mystery and magic.
A moment more, One moment more
I heard your voice.
I turned to find you
Waiting after all.
A moment's glance
One sentence
They were enough
I could have left then
Walked away
Into the chill night air
Carrying your image
In my heart
For evermore.
The vision
That i'd hoped to find.
But no
Convention intervened
Convention and politeness
Politeness and reality.
I did not leave, And so we moved
From a virtual knowledge
And a virtuous moment
To a complication of encounter.
There was not time to think
Reflect between exchanges
And my mind, unused to this
Was empty, My tongue tied
My feelings scattered in confusion
It was a new beginning
And, in that new beginning
I forgot, To take your hand
I forgot, To dance
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