Circle Dance

This poem was part of my work for an English class and was written May 5, 1980.  I have several rough drafts and modifications.  When I wrote about stone flutes and stingless lyre, I was thinking of an ecstatic dance where only God could hear the music and I think there was a bit of Lord Dunsany there as well.  I think I had in mind as well the juxtaposition of corporate worship - literally, ecstatic worship like I experienced among the Catholic charismatics - and individual devotion. I might also have had in mind, William Carlos William's Danse Russe, which I love.  The image of the man dancing naked in the attic, asserting (quietly, so as not to awaken anyone)  'I am an artist!' is very powerful.  No measured days in coffee spoons. In looking for images, I found this site, which has some pretty cool images of Tantric and ecstatic dancing. The quote from Eliade, whom I studied, appears at the beginning of the poem

". . . a dance always imitates an archetypal gesture or commemorates a mythical moment.  In a word, it is a representation, and consequently a reactualization, of illud tempus, 'those days'."
                                       Myth of the Eternal Return, M. Eliade

Our hearts, they leap up high beyond the fire
to seek the circle dance of God sublime;
To dance, to dance to music out of Time,
played on flutes of stone and stringless lyre.
But dust and clay against the heart conspire;
Seduced, minds weep their tiny china tears.
Will hearts repent their quest and bow to fears,
Will they forget the naming and retire?
Some wait at night the call of flutes of stone
and cast aside the waves of earth's advance.
The clay lies cold and we rejoice alone;
our solitary lives, we dance before the throne.
In higher places seek the circle dance,
the perfect dance, the dance for God alone.

 Image Credit