Saturday, December 23, 2017

Swan Lake

Swan Lake
© Surazeus
2017 12 23

The old gray-haired woman shuffling in socks
pushes open the glass library door
and sits on the couch by the magazines
and watches children play among the books.

Deep in her eyes some ancient memory stirs
when she was nine, and had long yellow hair,
and she went running barefoot in the grass
down to play on the muddy river shore.

Because she saw on television tube
the dancer from China named Li Cunxin
leaping high on stage in the show Swan Lake
she dances among the flowers and trees.

She leaps in the breeze that blows through her hair
and she leaps toward the sky inside her eye
and she leaps higher than rainbows in clouds
and she leaps in the void where stars shine pure.

I want to fly to heaven with the hawks
and sing with angels who strum ringing harps,
yet when I leap I almost leave the world,
but something always pulls my soul back down.

What keeps me bound tight to this heavy world,
containing the flashing dreams of desire
that urge me to soar far into the stars,
and forces me to walk blind path of life?

I wanted to dance ballet on the stage,
but my father drove the town garbage truck,
and my mother served burgers in cafes,
so I worked as cleaning maid in hotels.

For thirty years I made beds every night,
and raised autistic son who died at twelve
when he wandered into traffic one day,
and I watched television shows each night.

Three little girls approach and touch her hand,
and one asks with a sweet innocent voice,
"Are you the wife of jolly Santa Claus,
and did you bring cookies for us to eat?"

Not understanding one word the girls say,
because she is deaf, the old gray-haired woman
gazes into their pretty eyes and smiles,
and nods her head as they all run away.

Pushing up from the couch at closing time,
the old gray-haired woman shuffling in socks
pushes open the glass library door
and wanders in falling snow to the park.

Lying in her cardboard box in the bushes,
the old gray-haired woman stares at the stars
and dreams she soars on wings into the clouds
as midnight winds freeze her white as swan feathers.

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