Sword Dancer

Below the ochre cliffs tall grasses

stir to the wind’s slow dance, 

move graciously in time

to the measure of the years.

And I, now grown old, make my own 

movements in time,

retrace those years,

return to the Emperor’s golden court

and another age, full fifty years before

as the cliff, the grasses, all that is around me

grows vague with an old longing

and momently disappears.

She moves as a sword sweeps:

her long sleeves carve an arc

through the mythic space

of her court performance

that is the arena of her mind:

a space as invisible as the traceries

of the coursing stars, and as defined.

Shaking clouds of dark anger

from those same sleeves,

the rolling thunder growls:

a beast slipped from its leash,

rampaging, raging, until the storm is done.

And I, stunned to silence among her audience

can only watch, wait for the storm to pass,

wait for the sleeves to shake out calm reprieves:

the still air, and the high silence of birds

grazing the bronze face of a late and courtly sun.

Rustling pearled tiara, layered silk brocade

and the very air we breathed 

slit by the passage of her pliant blade:

Lady Gongshun, the sword dancer

from the city of the White Goddess,

moves in silence, moves in thunder,

her feet frame questions

as her sword gives answer:

one world is created, another splits asunder.

The west wind veils the golden court

with dust from the inland plains.

The Lady, the grasses: all I see around me

grows vague with an old longing

and only the dance remains

in the arena of my mind:

a dance as invisible as the traceries

of the coursing stars, and as defined.

© David Bergen