Poem: Prelude to a Dance

Prelude to a Dance

This house, once so full of life,
is empty for you now,
a museum that bears only a surface resemblance
to the place you once dwelled,

with no pictures on the walls
or warm flames in the abandoned fireplaces,
no laughter in the halls,
nothing but a single chair in each room

like a surrealist painting,
yet real,
a place for strangers to sit
when they are tired.

You sat there once,
a stranger in your own house,
confused and passive,
waiting for the color to return,

until you understood
that the color was around you,
outside and beyond,
and you could wait no longer, until

like a child on the first day of May,
you could not help yourself, but ran
outside, and danced the wild dance
of dandelion seeds in the warm wind of spring.

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The picture was taken at Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson's less famous home in Forest Va. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom