EURYDICES DANCES ALONE

[ dancing woman, Alex Francis ]

After the Freud to Eurydice poem, I felt I needed to present Eurydice as dancing -- alone. And loving it, the way I love best to dance alone. My injured knee still amazingly allows me some fluidity of movement, but it can be capricious, so every serpentine minute is ecstatic. 

Eurydice Dances    

  

“Shall we dance?” I ask,

and all my selves and names

gather into the single bouquet

of my swaying body.

I place my weight on one side,

to spare my injured, my heroic knee –

it’s even more passionate that way,

my one-knee tango, dancing on scar tissue.

I hold the night in my arms,
its rhythmic planets and stars,

in this house across

the tango of the eucalyptus grove.

I hold my life in my arms;

while the music lasts, we last.

I hold my death in my arms;

every night I marry myself.

During these Orphic mysteries

I feel so safe that a disaster,

like a rock hurled from a crowd,

would stop and hang in mid-air,

then harmless fall to the ground.

While the music lasts, we last.

“You are mine,” I sing

to everything that sings,

that dances on one leg,

hangs by one last leaf –

“Love me tender,” I croon

to the candle, a nun,

and the humming river of cars

in the street below the ravine –

lights and shadows passing,

kissing as they pass.

   ~ Oriana

** 

Una:

I esp love "I croon / to the candle, a nun"

Oriana:

I was thinking of the halo. Also, for me candles have a strong religious association. The leap to the candle itself being a nun -- I'm very happy about that inspiration.