The Crane Dance

The clew paying out through his fingers, a deftness   

that would bring him back to her, its softness the softness   

of skin, as if drawn from herself directly, the faint   

labial smell, guiding him up and out, as some dampness   

on the air might lead a stone-blind man to the light.

Asterios dead for sure, his crumpled horn, his muzzle   

thick with blood, so at Delos they stopped,   

Theseus and the young Athenians, and stepped   

up to the "altar of horns" to dance a puzzle-

dance, its moves unreadable except to those who'd walked   

the blank meanders of the labyrinth.   

And this was midday: a fierce sun, the blaze   

of their nakedness, the glitter of repetitions, a dazzle   

rising off the sea, the scents of pine and hyacinth. . .

Well, things change: new passions, new threats, new fears.   

New consequences, too. Nowadays, we don't think much   

about Theseus, the Minotaur, Ariadne on the beach   

at Naxos, staring out at the coming years.   

But people still dance that dance: just common folk,   

those criss-cross steps that no one had to teach,   

at weddings and wakes, in bars or parks,   

as if hope and heart could meet, as if they might   

even now, somehow, dance themselves out of the dark.