the dancers, they say

AUTHOR'S PRAYER 

If I speak for the dead, I must
leave this animal of my body,

I must write the same poem over and over
for the empty page is a white flag of their surrender.

If I speak of them, I must walk
on the edge of myself, I must live as a blind man

who runs through the rooms without
touching the furniture.

Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking
"What year is it?"
I can dance in my sleep and laugh

in front of the mirror.
Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,

I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak

of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say

is a kind of petition and the darkest days
must I praise.

Ilya Kaminsky

photography by piotr kowalik


~|~ ~|~ ~|~ ~|~

i can trace no steps back to where I was before,
before age, before experience, before years were marked
by the steps i've taken

i could waltz once, with clumsy grace, and 
foxtrot to the sound of rhythms
older than the steps we traced

to dance within form and society is a skill

to dance with the exultation of  a child
is a gift that fades as quickly
as the sound of footsteps
down an empty hallway

~mine 2007/07