Why Did You Stop Dancing? Poem by RIC BASTASA

i wonder
what made you stop
dancing
with the words

did the music stop?
did all the other
dancers leave
the hall?
did the hall close
earlier than
we expected?
was there a
blackout?

the world somehow
does not stop
revolving
around the sun of
beauty
when one
chooses the slumber
of nothingness

it may tell you
that one quitter does not
destroy the beauty of
the quiet that still
reigns in the pond where
the frog keeps
splashing
with its hind legs
and then croak happily
after each
jump

on top of the lily
rising with a flower
from the mud
of its past

somehow
the heart of the earth
feels
the waste of a fallen
leaf
and there is no exact
connection for this
that one
can point

but soon you will
discover
that in one corner of this
universe
a star dies
another black hole is born
and so many
floating creations
too shall be lost with it

sucked
into that darkness that we
know still exists
but we are
still uncertain as

where and
why.