HOW IT APPEARED TO ME THEN

 the red rose dance again or the dance in the red rose dress

is how I saw it then since every red dress was rosy to me

how I remembered it then watching the dance on tv even in black and white

the threshing of tiny fires in the grass of the Unseen and the child I was entranced by

the smart tap of the shoes like a telegraphic relay

the castanets swirling, in a limited cascade of the ruffle

of the wave

of the dress in rose, rose red

so pure it seemed to me to be the one dancing the dance of the red

rose en espanol would be a way to be vivid just for the sake of vividness itself

to be precise for the sake of precision to be definite in the world, defining just

this space, to be as you wished to be not to be seen but to be for that moment the arbiter of the dance

almost a Queen without consciousness of it at all

to glance suddenly upward toward God flinging the beauty back

of the tap and the tap and the tap, distinct, the sharp! crackle of the fan

the time allotted a kind of rose music exemplified rarified distinct:

become a brief lifespan flaring now and then, the burning bush in

retrospect

a code learned in a circumspect way an unexpected staccato of sparks in the end

flown upward ruby sparkles and the fan shuts closed

that they may become the stars.

mary angela douglas 11 april 2021;14 september 2022

1Mary Angela Douglas