Poetry by Michael L. Newell ↔ Art by Sue Clancy
fingers dance up and down guitar strings
dresses flip flop and fly up and down calves and thighs
of lasses whirling twirling flying across the floor
lightly attached to hands of swains swirling behind
around and side to side their partners
while a bow hand releases a cascade of notes
wildly exuberantly ecstatically fiddled
the night is aflame with the freedom of Saturday night
tomorrow the sturdy bassist who is the band’s foundation
will don his janitor’s suit to sweep up the ashes
still hearing the music around him still seeing
bodies flying above the music and the floor
still remembering the little red head who kept
bringing him one cool drink after another
A QUESTION TO THE FACE IN THE MIRROR
Have you never skipped, hopped, bounced, twirled, swirled,
felt the earth turn into a trampoline beneath your feet
just before you floated into the air, song in your throat,
fiddle on your shoulder and bones clacking in your knees;
as a lad or lass loose in a field
were you never flung among clouds, deposited
in the highest branches of trees, hung by
wind from the wing of a passing plane;
when you see a river of children stream past
your stunned feet and form swelled with years,
do you never remember those days so many years buried
when every morning shone with a possibility of flight
and a host of evenings brought fireflies to light a search
for mystery and suspense in the shadows beyond
the reach of moonlight or starlight; even now when movement
requires three legs, do you not rummage through memory
and when certain shapes emerge and once familiar voices murmur
round your slow moving path, do you not feel the old soft shoe,
the frisky jig, the Texas two step, the waltz’s lift and fall, the meaning
of life encoded in breath, breeze, wind, and movement’s embrace?
EVERY NOW AND AGAIN
seated on the ground, back against
an oak tree, no movement anywhere,
not even a faint breeze, all is still
still still, all the weight of the world
suspended in silence, even thought
has ceased, and for a few moments
or minutes, who knows at such times,
all has joined, all is one, seamless,
inseparable, full of hope, one is
a child again alone with the world
and all its magic and possibility
La Paz, Bolivia, January 2009
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