Poetry Magazine,Guy Bares, March 2000

Gary Bares

USA

The Poet's Dance

The cover opens, the pages turn, a book that rested high.
The poets wake and one by one they dance before my eye.

They move with joy that must have come from such a hellish wait.
Like souls whose death is spent in doubt before their heaven's gate.

Here heaven's not a place or time but just another soul.
To share the dance of hope and grief, Oh how love takes its toll.

With steps in time to nature's rhyme, they dance with lettered feet
And dare the soul whose come this night to remain in their seat.

They grab my hand and lead me on, it's they who know the way.
These unsealed lips have kissed the past and have so much to say.

Their echoes ring throughout the hall with spins from page to page.
Each poet shares their dance of time then exits from the stage.

But far from gone their spirit lasts and soon will join the next.
Then hand in hand the dance will grow, this ballroom of the text.

The heavens saved the depths of time, they lingered in the air.
Till winds of truth blew poets near and trusted to their care.

The secret dance of souls gone by with steps we'd all forsake.
Had love and joy not made demands, it's these that we must take.

The night draws on and soon of course the cover must be sealed.
Like coffin lids that once had hid these poets since revealed.

Though on these faces laid to rest, I thought I sensed a smile.
Perhaps this time has been just fine if only for a while.

The cover falls and once again they're hoisted to their grave.
But rot they won't for nature yields, her secrets theirs to save.

Till some fair soul again may pass, perhaps like me, by chance.
And come across this treasured past just waiting for a dance.