Shall We Dance

I don’t know what
To say
More importantly,
I don’t know what
To do
What would you do?
You would love through everything
And give
And serve
You would breathe justice
And you would also allow everyone a voice
And give everyone a turn

You would let water roll
And gather it in still, green places
So that people might have a drink
And maybe around which
To build
And then let the water move on
So that it gathers safely
And keeps moving to feed others

You would
Protect the land,
Give people what they, what we, need
Though we would yet be on our own
Because that is the truth and mystery of will

You would allow each one an hour on one’s own
And make it fine
When each of us returns
To be welcomed back sometimes as if we had been gone for a long while

You would let us be parents
And also children
The child to be a child, certainly,
And also let the grown-ups be from time to time
Like children

You would remember we aren’t perfect
There are flaws built in through sin that maybe wasn’t ours
But in some paradox
Or even some kind of unfairness
We’re left to deal with
One by one
And in every generation, until everything’s renewed

‘Til then
You’ll keep us from perfection
Yet love us without flaw
While we will pray and liturgize haphazardly
Depending on our creeds and the splinters we’ve allowed
‘Til unity
Make sense
For love
And practicality

And you come down
Come up
Come form the side
At last
To finish the justice that was started in creation
To fix our flaws
The way we broke the Earth
The way we break each other
Mended finally
To last
As last
And how we were
The first day that you made us
When we had a garden to tend
That for all we know
Was planetwide
At first
And everything to name
Because you meant for us to task
Everything we are
And love the work
And labor of our lives

So today I will wonder
And do things
And wondering’s a thing
And think on you
And think on everyone
And everything
On Earth
And in the stars that as a kind
We have only started
To approach
And hopefully
If flawed
Though flawed for now
And even though
With your approval

As some of us
Wrote and sang
Shall we dance
After our work
And in our work

C L Couch


The popular song “Shall We Dance” is from the musical The King and I, though there is an earlier, eponymous movie (a vehicle for Rogers and Astaire).

Photo by Levi Williams on Unsplash