beyond the stasis

Of The Dance

flashes:

--a lower schooler before me, intent upon the dancers before him,

--a grandmother, all aglow with superlatives,
her grandson only one focus of her transcendent appreciation,















--the applause bursts from the middle schoolers
when surprise, virtuosity, grace, humor touches them,

--each photo I flash holds each moment I can
before gravity and the creativity arc move on,








a senior, closer and closer to the moving up and on of college,
still follows the pull of remembering and knowing her earlier self,
each step after step before still follows her
to where and who she is now,
so she speaks to middle school assembled
of her love for performing for them,
a favorite performance,
for she is in their eyes
and she treasures her memories of being those eyes
and early on deciding such a path could be hers, too,



















I love each moment before me
as each dance speaks a language
that exists before words,
words that cannot even hope to the power
to translate the language of dance fully,

















something happens in dance that can hold
the youngest, the oldest, and all in-between,
in the movement that life pulls from the stasis
that is first & last but that should not be all.








by Henry H. Walker
December 7, ’11