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Dance With the Wind
by Jane Lang

Pirouette, fourth position
a dip, then fifth
vaguely remembered,
orchestrated by a demanding
ballet mistress beating time
with a long, slender stick
piano counting cadence

A wind-blown tracery of a leaf
landing soundlessly among mossy
rocks like a feather lost by a hapless
bird looking for bits of food —
scurry of wings as it heads toward a
leafless tree, its shabby wind-lashed
nest, nearly uninhabitable

No adagio for me, no boy
tall enough to match my
height, yet I continue to twirl
in the wind, hum the overture
Swan Lake, my entrance
my prince as we jeté towards
stage-left

Just as the brown bird, I've given
it color though know not the
sex, is carried on an upward
gust, the wind-blown tracery
of a paper-thin brown leaf,
flying effortlessly, like an
adagio left unperformed

 

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