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About This Poem
To a ballerina
Before this night grows too long,
Let us sing then our swan’s song.
For within these hidden brutal constraints we’ve had not joy or peace.
We'll whisper goodbye as something gentle seeks release
With some perfect arabesque of the stillborn plight
Of friends and lovers who must meet in night.
And we shall return to an assemble of time,
As that mocking clown who with his cruel jokes that rhyme
Makes light of dark intent and cares not for what might have been
As we turn away from dreams undreamt and visions left unseen.
And then, with sweet words of one’s fond wishes and an intransient dream,
One last kiss, a mere stroke upon the portrait of your lips
Only known so long and now seen to slip
Into the ashes of this night fires’ expiring gleam.
We’ll say “Good night” and forswear the lingering embrace
For there are deeper things whereby we trace
Our love and know that somewhere beyond a recalcitrant heart and the qualms
of uncertain memory,
There is something beyond all reach, dancing now, to the rhythm of our own
haunting melody.
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