The Tango Problem

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[uncompromised pre-workshop version might be better than the revision]

The Tango Problem

The universe is composed of music
More complex and lovely than we can know

Let me take you across the floor
On this chariot of formal logic
Meteorites, fireflies tracing a deliberate math

And in this manner
Pass through one another
Each into the mirror emerges its own reflection

The city is large and elegant
Thriving and functional
Beneath it is a layer of compacted trash
A layer of mistakes held in place
By the weight of those
Who inhabit the consequences

The tango is a sun
That makes the earth transparent
Melts the trash into glass
Our sadness rising into a posture of dignity
We dance with our regrets, fears, despair
Reclaim it as our own, shards of broken glass
Recontextualized as mosaic

Within me, my heart and lungs
In a shifting tempo

As you and I dance
We dance with the next couple
Circling in rhythm

I know nothing of you except your movement
As precise as water flowing over rocks
And now the music has ended
We part like strangers
You fall from my arms like the last leaf of autumn
Although you will now dance with a better man
I am dreamy, fulfilled

We dance with all life
As the earth with the moon
(The moon backleading)
And the sun with other stars
And the galaxy with other clusters
In a spiral of tango all the way out

 

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2004