by W.F. Lantry
The stage is blank now. Ribbons swirling, smoke illuminated from beneath by red lamps focused on the emptiness, oak boards laid down into a pattern which affords a place to leap and land: the colored thread of narrative in dance has disappeared.
Those arms, like crane wings catching air, once sheared the curtained wind as if to fly, their lines as straight as quills, or intricate cleft braids whose interwoven motion still cascades like water falling through the wreathed designs we only dreamed could be performed. But she
who danced with careless practiced ecstasy, and gave movement to form, her legs taut springs to carry her along those lights where birds no longer fly, the calligraphs of words written in air by limbs where red silk clings, leapt into space and found no place to land.
We all must fall in pain. I understand. But still I dream of cranes among the reeds, their wings just opening, ready for flight, extended feathers catching sunset light like fingers parting strings of colored beads, rising a little more with each wingstroke. |