The Space Between The Dancers Poem by Sean Joyce

You return to your book
to have your whole consciousness
utterly occupied by the thoughts and feelings
of an author who has been dead
for hundreds of years

With imagination
or just a tenuous grip on reality
you can walk in the days of your choice
in the company of the people in the books you read.

People ask where you are going on holidays
but never what you plan to read
Yet your vacation location is secondary to the people,
fictitious or otherwise, you choose to take with you

We must take great care when we book our holidays
For we can, if we choose, walk with Boswell and Johnson
in the London of the 1770s
Retire with - Fanny Hill - A woman of pleasure
and wake up with - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

We can wine and dine with Wilde and Shaw
and never get a word in edgeways
We can have - A Year In Provence, and return with
The Memories of a Fox Hunting Gentleman

But there is no rush and the books will wait
While we watch this brave panoply roll by

See, smiling now, the ever-changing shape
of the space between the dancers
And in that space allow
the never-ending song
The music of the Masters
recreating in our minds
Irrefutable arguments
for happiness and joy

Happy New Year