Forgotten Ground Regained
Modern Dancers
Moved by a power · that prayer can’t callbut a fingertip can, · two figures spring upin an instant dance, · evenly paired,he slender, she round. · (Strange, when you thinkthere’s no number that tells · the times he’s the larger.And yet he amounts · to just more than she.)They flit and cross, · forward and back,in a whirl, in rows, · in rings and spires,miming and melting · manifold forms.It all seems giddy, · but even so,their line moving brinkward · from left to rightmakes sense of the dance, · gives it depth—or not;it’s for us to judge. · What isn’t in doubtas we screen and cull · is the speed of the waltzers,breakneck, unchallenged, · brainless as light.
Copyright © Donald Mace Williams, 2008
Originally published in JASAT, Nov. 2008
First published in Forgotten Ground Regained: A Journal of Alliterative Verse, New Series, Issue 2, Spring, 2024
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Answer: the zeros and ones of math and science