photo credit: Bill Cottman 

I USED TO DANCE

I knew

I’d better learn to dance

I never knew how much was required

Or how long the music would last

I didn’t know how to catch

A segue before being trapped

On a dance floor or

Lost in drumbeats and bass lines

I used to dance… or

There was a dance

I used to do

There was a time

I used to dance the electric slide

The push and pull

The tighten up

My body remembers

More than my legs can comply 

My torso sways like a pendulum

Before my hands reclaim finger popping

As filler for flow I used to know –

 

If only I could remember the Boogaloo

 

I was conjuring for float-a-come

For whatever traveled from soles

Of my feet through my fingers and mouth

For duende to lift me up off the ground

To some place more fitting my status

To higher ground down to da sky 

I never knew from whence it can

But I had a talent for getting lost

In sound – eyes closed – heart opened

Body moving without regard for gravity

I used to spin

And turn 360 on the beat in rhythm and sing

When I was young

I used to pray

On dance floors all over north Alabama

Oblivious to mortality and a cooling board

Freeing my soul while floating on air

To rapping DJs who talked smack in rhymes

Or live bands that covered Soul

Funk and R&B

Scorpio, Machine Gun, Green Onions and

Grazing In The Grass slowed my roll

Long enough to dig instrumental meditation

Before I started to dance to jazz

Standing against a wall or sitting very still

 

I once met a troubadour who confessed

That jazz made him want to

Dance more than he could

 

He clearly didn’t realize he could dance in place

Think abstractly and find another groove

He didn’t know what he didn’t know

About forgetting to react and learning to listen

When I was young I used to dance

Now I listen to memories my body made

And make movements after the fact toward

Change