Still Waters

The Dancer.

Each day the canal beats its perverse course,

breathing out its breath in muttered whispers,

disturbed now and then, fragmented to shards

as longboats in kaleidoscopes of colour,

parade with pride in stark primary hues –

sun yellow, blood red, Greek blue, Sherwood green.

After rain, sluice gates rush with wild water,

furious and white, swirling into the

deep ambient blackness of the basin.

Rising high, the waters fight to escape,

squeezing through rotting timbers with a force,

elemental and untamed, en route to the sea.

On each given day you’ll find The Dancer.

On fine days, always stripped down to the waist,

baggy track suit bottoms; Doc Martin boots,

gyrating to rhythms, only he hears.

Plugged in and wired up, he parties for one,

arms flapping as if conducting the scene.

His aged torso is but sinew and bone –

replacing the muscle that has long gone.

He dances a Matins in the morning,

and a Vespers at the end of his day.

Should you happen to pass this way at lunch,

he’ll be drinking tea from a paper cup.

This place is his sanctum, his life – his home

as he dances in silence on his own –

he says his favourite is the The Boomtown Rats.

Where he sleeps, we can only contemplate.

The canal’s his alpha and omega,

the dancing is his reason and his why…

Spare a thought for the dancer...

for we all have to dance to our own song