My Dancing Feet

Sometimes I get dancing feet.
I’ll hear a song
and can’t help but want to move
to its rhythm,
to its beat.

It can be
Gene Kelly
on Turner Classic Movies
Singing in the Rain
and my big old stompers
will just about go absolutely insane.
Let me see a scene
with Ginger Rogers
swinging and swaying
and floating through the air
with Fred Astaire,
seemingly without a single care
and, man, I can’t keep my feet still.
Bojangles and Shirley Temple
scatting and tapping up and down the stairs
in The Little Colonel
gets my feet to moving
against their will.

And it’s not always
old school
that gets me in
a dancing groove.
I mean Chris Brown makes me
hurt myself
when I forget how old I am
and try to copy one of his moves.
It’s hard being
Hip-Hop smooth.
But I’ll put a chiropractor
on speed dial
before I give up
my dancing feet.
Oh, you play the music
and I can’t sit in my seat.

Sometimes there’s no music playing
and I still get dancing feet
like when my team
is up against it,
facing defeat,
coming from behind
just before the game runs out of time.

Like when my daughter
says “Hi, Dad”
after being in a coma
for a long time.

Like when reading
a Langston Hughes rhyme
or getting out of a bind;
walking through a forest
under a sunny blue sky
among oaks and pines;
being toasted by dear friends
with a fine wine
aromatic and refreshing
in its character,
winding
around my taste buds,
a credit to its vines.

But, Lord, sometimes,
my dancing feet
drag,
ever so slow,
reflecting a spirit that’s
agonizingly low,
weakened by life’s cares and woes:
A 17 year old boy
falls dead from gunshot wounds,
skittles and tea
flying from his hands,
his life taken in a
horribly frightening moment
by a man
who dances to music
so discordant
that it poisons his mind,
causing him to surrender to his fears
and his suspicions.
And I wonder, having seen
this terpsichorean routine
too many times
if I will ever really
cut a rug again
in my lifetime
with any amount
of zeal.

Oh, of course I will.
I’ll just have to weather
the storm
of despair
and before I know it
Gene and Ginger
and Fred and Bojangles
and Shirley and Chris
will break through
the heaviness in the air
and ease the pain
and I’ll be singing
and dancing
in the spirit that I always have
rather than weeping in the rain.

I’ll just have to listen for the beat
and leave the rest to my dancing feet.