Let’s Dance For The First Time
“Every time we dance, we do it for the first time….It means that what we are doing is always new, because we are always doing it for the first time.” – Al Chung-liang Huang, T’ai Chi master, leader of Tao, cited in Gary Zukav, “The Dancing Wu Li Masters.”
After fifty years of dancing, let’s dance
for the first time. And while we’re at it,
let’s kiss for the first time, let’s embrace
for the first time, let’s cross the Seine, splitting
a tarte de pêche. Mon cher, dansons! for the first time,
our bodies moving to the rhythms of much younger kisses
and embraces, the way we breathe in sky and sea and wind,
gathering sunmoonstardust unto our virgin skin,
into our bones, deep within our very platelets.
Today has nothing to do with yesterday. Nothing
to do with tomorrow. Plus qu’hier,
moins que demain. Ça va? Bien, my darling, bien,
pour la première fois, again.
Finally
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. – Deuteronomy 30:19, New International Version
In the Temple of the Second Chance we
choose Life. Try again to conjure
the Point at Infinity. Although
we know, still, that parallel lines
will never meet.
All of a sudden, the wind is rising.
The trees do backbends. […]
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Marian Kaplun Shapiro is the author of a professional book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988), a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007) and two chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). She adores her two weeks in Paris with her true love – her husband of 55 years – every September. A resident of Lexington, she was named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts in 2006, in 2008, in 2010, 2011, and 2014. She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2012.