Poem: "The Bellydancer's Secret"

[ysabetwordsmith]

So I've been enjoying the crowdfunded bellydance project by mikalay and it got me thinking about this style of dance.  Then my_partner_doug pointed me to her YouTube channel, which I hadn't noticed, and I really admired that.  Whereupon I wrote this...


The Bellydancer's Secret

If you would learn to dance,
learn to become --

hang your hips from the drum
and turn your bones to silk,
to liquid, to rhythm

become a serpent sliding over sand
become a goddess gliding through the night
become an ocean rolling under moon --

for this is the dance of the desert
and the desert is in the dance
for all time and beyond time,

music beating the world into being,
shapes pressed out by the dancer's careful steps.

Comments

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like this one. That second stanza, especially: hang your hips from the drum. Lovely!

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like the poem.

And that is actually how I bellydance. The drum drives the motion. If I have to think up moves on my own, or worse yet, memorize them -- those styles of dance I tend to do badly.

[mikalay.livejournal.com]

<3

[laffingkat.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes--this captures the rhythm and the feel of the dance well! Makes me long to put on some appropriate music and join the dance. :)

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

The poem works, then. Thanks for the feedback.