HOW IT APPEARED TO ME THEN

the red rose dance again or the dance in the red rose dress

is how I saw it then since every red dress was rosy to me
how I remembered it then watching the dance on tv even in black and white
the threshing of tiny fires in the grass of the Unseen and the child I was entrancd by
the smart tap of the shoes like a telegraphic relay
the castenets swirling, in a limited cascade of the ruffle
of the wave
of the dress in rose, rose red
so pure it seemed to me to be the one dancing the dance of the red
rose en espanol would be a way to be vivid just for the sake of vividness itself
to be precise for the sake of precision to be definite in the world, defining just
this space, to be as you wished to be not to be seen but to be for that moment the arbiter of the dance
almost a Queen without consciousness of it at all
to glance suddenly upward toward God flinging the beauty back
of the tap and the tap and the tap, distinct, the sharp! crackle of the fan
the time alloted a kind of rose music exemplified rarified distinct:
become a brief lifespan flaring now and then
a code learned in a circumspect way an unexpected staccato of sparks in the end
flown upward ruby sparkles and the fan shutters closed
that they may become the stars.
mary angela douglas 11 april 2021;rev. 13 june 2022