Dancer and The Following Dark

 

 

The Dancer and The Following Dark .

There is a ship on the horizon, carrying a container that confines a lonely soul, who can’t see where the ship is taking him, only feels where it has been.

There is a dancer, dancing in her own light.  Her space glows with a warmth he doesn’t allow himself to feel.  She invites him to come closer, to join her, but he feels undeserving of the light she offers – preferring the shelter of the following dark.  For he believes his steely space keeps others safe, spares them the pain of who he is yet to become.  But his reluctance to join her deals a much sharper blow.

Her efforts to spin him into her embrace, her offering to feel the soothing space where her fingertips touch the soft painted sky that holds her balanced in the shadows, falls into the dark space between them.

She wonders if he misunderstands her offering.  For she doesn’t long for him to dance her dance.  Her only want is that he allows her dance to hold him in a moment she believes he deserves.  And that he’ll step from the following dark, carrying nothing more than a desire for moments – and the freedom to dance in his own light.

 

 (Reposted from 2014.  Art journal page by Harley Manifold .  Find in  ‘Clunk & Jam’ book.)