Call For The Next Dance Poem by Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot

(for Harry)

How we used to dance together.

The dinner table would be set
With its lyrical sparkle of low light,
the candle would bid us:
Dance!
With mine, your body would move
in all directions,
weaving a poetry of motion
creating – unconsciously-
beautiful memories
that we would summon
with a smile,
not sorrow
when we could not dance
together anymore
Ah, how we loved to dance

In the morning
At noon
In the evening
How we loved to dance

When eternity was ours
in our moments of solitude together
or with a coterie of friends
or even total strangers,
we would dance
You would dance with a swarm of
lithe bodies or stiff ones
As long as I was there
I would watch as your feet pirouetted
as if controlled by some spirit of their own
You loved to dance

And before the next ball
I was snatched as I was about to hurl myself
to your waiting arms
after we were apart for a few days
the few that seemed frustratingly infinite
But the train came too fast, stopped long
(or short) enough to load me and absconded
before I could beg for a chance to say
to you
Goodbye
in the fashion we were accustomed
I wish we could have gone to the
Last Dance
which you skipped
because I could no longer go with you
Even if
You loved to dance

Lately, I would silently feel you
intuitively hankering for a dance
But you would not move your feet
Because I could not mine
Even if
You loved to dance

Because you must,
I let you grieve
I let you stop dancing
Even if
You loved to dance

The datebook of the past year is no longer there
in its place one desperate to remind you
time has moved forward with slow precision
Or have you not noticed?
The interregnum has been long
Even the Great Source of Wisdom says
There is a time for everything
A time to cry, a time to laugh
A time to hurt, a time to heal
Too, there must be, for you,
A time to forget, a time to remember
A time to bury a loved one,
A time to exhume the stirring memories
that say life does not end with one death,
Like how
You loved to dance

There is a ball
Why does the spirit in your feet slumber
Still?
You do not want to go
because I will not be there,
You think?
Even if
You loved to dance

Go to the bedroom
(Which is no longer ours but yours; let the
last of me vacate it so you can be whole)
Open the wardrobe
Retrieve your dancing pants
and your dancing shoes
Heed the call of the dance floor
It missed you for too long
This last time
I will be there
Before the clock strikes at midnight
Let me go
Because really
I have gone a long time
as your dance partner

Before I go, brace your ears
Let me stay
long enough to whisper to you

Dance again.

(10 July 2007)

*Harry is my California-based friend. His wife died unexpectedly. I wrote this a year after he was widowed when I and his other friends thought he was behaving like he was buried with his wife.