How I Began to Dance by Kimberly Stutevoss

How I Began to dance by Kimberly Stutevoss

When I am asked

How I began to dance

I talk about my mother

She had dance as a child

All the way through college

The most elegant ballerina

Gliding through the air

As the black swan,

Her most important part

She was the black swan herself

Jete-ing through the air

And spinning with her 36 fouettes

She took me to my first lesson

But because of her I continued

I want to dance just like her

As elegant

As charming

And everything else

I danced through the years

Twirling and gliding

It was how I communicated

My own body language

Every look was a hello

And every reach was a goodbye

I danced for years

And to this day I miss it

Missing my main way of communication

Showing my true feelings

Through the lyrics and moves

When I am asked

How I began to dance

I talk about my mother 

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Poem of the Day: When I Am Asked

BY LISEL MUELLER

When I am asked   

how I began writing poems,   

I talk about the indifference of nature.   

It was soon after my mother died,   

a brilliant June day,   

everything blooming.   

I sat on a gray stone bench   

in a lovingly planted garden,   

but the day lilies were as deaf   

as the ears of drunken sleepers   

and the roses curved inward.   

Nothing was black or broken   

and not a leaf fell   

and the sun blared endless commercials   

for summer holidays.   

I sat on a gray stone bench   

ringed with the ingenue faces   

of pink and white impatiens   

and placed my grief   

in the mouth of language,   

the only thing that would grieve with me.