Linda said:’ The poem was inspired by watching many outstanding ice dance performances on TV. My love of skating goes back to Torvill and Dean’s landmark performance to the music of Ravel’s Bolero at the 1984 Winter Olympics. This took place while my father was dying – a fact which made it particularly uplifting for me. I was finally able to see them perform it live a few years ago.
‘These days, the extremely complicated and daring routines we see executed by modern skaters often defy belief and the performers seem to be transformed into superhuman beings when they step out onto the ice. This fact led to the images in the poem which I gave a French title because it seems more elegant and magical than the Anglo-Saxon term skating.
‘At the end of the day, of course, the skaters are human beings just like us, a fact made all too apparent when they step back onto ‘dry land’ and have to walk in an ungainly fashion to their seats. Can we be transformed for a moment when we consider these magical routines? Perhaps only in our dreams….’
To read Lind’s poem go to cirenscene.com
To read poems by other local writers go to somewhere-else-writers.org.
Patinage
A fragile girl
In frail attire,
Escorted by her prince,
Steps out upon a chilly sea of glass,
Transformed from human
Into airborne mayfly
At a glance.
And as the music swells
They swirl and glide
Like magic
On a silver thread of steel,
No longer man and girl
But butterflies entranced
Swooping, spinning, twirling
In heart-stopping traceries
Of acrobatic flight,
Defying gravity,
Balanced on one blade
At agonizing speed.
And then he throws her
Like gossamer,
Spinning threefold-
Impossible, it seems,
Yet artful in extreme.
Without a blink,
She lands one-footed,
Still sailing on,
Unbroken thread
Of motion….
And what, I wonder,
What impossibilities
Would she dream that night?
And then, triumphant pose,
Hands held aloft, it ends,
And, gliding swans transformed,
They waddle on dry land
Mere man and maid, once more.
Biography
Linda Dyson
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