Within a Sky Full of Earth

Dancers in action

THEY are filled with a quietude
And feel the dedication of their bodies
To movements that are self contained.
Challenging all the formal laws of form,
And with a symmetry that quivers
Within its own acute awareness.
As a light wave is their golden glow
That warms the sluggish outline of those static forms
Who sit and watch with riveted attention.
Now this distant world falls into focus
As the extended curve of bodies reaches
To encroach on space, where the dancers will
Surmount their earthbound earthiness.

The movement’s peak is reached, and their return
Carries the speed and swoop of unhampered swallows
While all earth’s pressures wait to converge on
Lithe limb and brain and movements ecstasy;
But their own world encases them,
And stillness reigns in that retreat
‘Where mind would scrutinise afresh,
Recalling that strange moment of great power
Which was their body’s exploration of
A unity that this instant ceased to be.
Ninette de Valois