Dancing Mind

The Dancer does not posture,
moving in pretty poses,
watching herself from the audience.

The Dancer does not gesture,
illustrating mental events
with movements like symbols.

Her dance is not expression
of her sense of the music
or the subject
or herself.

Nor does she hold herself aloof;
the Dancer laughs and growls and weeps
her Dance

And does not know it:
She is not there.

Only the old deep mind
that lives by moving

And inhabits the rhythm
that breathes every breath
and sustains every atom.

The Dancer does not question
the source or the form of the Dance.
It has none: it is her.

Copyright © 1993 by Catherine Holmes Clark.
All rights reserved.