Two Step (Completely Revised, Renewed, Sorry)
For those interested in a writer’s process: writers (at least writers like me) sometimes overwork things and completely mess them up – especially at 2 in the morning. So below is a poem previously posted in a much different version. I’ve gone back to something more like the original; it’s a Father’s Day poem which is probably why it was difficult.
Two Step
You could never really manage more than a two-step and even that stumbled to its own chuckled beat, your movements accented with a panache of abashment.
And I would watch from the sidelines, sometimes with my own more snarky embarrassment, being young and indentured to the Gods of Cool.
But the truth is I didn’t snipe much, knowing even as a teen that I could never embody such goodness, my edges just too sharp, like my mother’s nose, my own elbows.
The only time I even came close was later, when you could no longer walk, barely stand, and I brought you those old songs (Glenn Miller, your remembered sound of hope in hard times, having made it across the Channel ’44), and your feet, though unable to truly press the floor, would shuffle in that same old just-off beat, arms lifted.
And whether or not heaven is an actual place–I hate to say that I have my doubts== at least I’m not sure about one with dance floors–I feel your pulse in my head today, Father’s Day, the air around me as tuneful as those hollowed instruments = and am mindful of the resurrection of love, that incredible two step of gift and receipt only in your case it was giving mainly –that’s what you did, and perhaps why your movements always seemed a bit unbalanced, dancing.
Tags: dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night, Escher, Magpie Tales, manicddaily, prose poem about dancing, Prose poem about father, Two Step
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ManicDDaily 
June 20, 2012 at 7:09 am
[…] « Luminous Two Step (Completely Revised, Renewed, Sorry) […]
June 20, 2012 at 7:45 am
Clever 🙂
June 20, 2012 at 8:49 am
Beautiful tribute to Dad…
June 20, 2012 at 8:53 am
felt…and this one rolls a bit smoother for sure…and if there is a heaven, i surely hope there is a dance floor…smiles…the ressurection of love is a beautiful things…smiles.
June 20, 2012 at 10:10 am
“mindful of the resurrection of love, that incredible two step of gift and receipt” wow . . . and by the time I read this line I know the anecdotal image behind each piece of that–which is enough to bring tears to my eyes–and when you add that little was given back, thus the imbalance. This is such a beautifully structured story, lovingly titled.
June 20, 2012 at 10:32 am
Oh wow–love the way you used the imbalance throughout and most poignantly at the end. A “resurrection of love” indeed!
June 20, 2012 at 10:33 am
Sorry I missed the first go round, to be able to compare. Not going to elaborately comment as, never having had a father or father figure, this is all foreign territory for me–though the sense of loss of someone beloved is, of course, universal. The image of dancing with ‘a panache of abashment,’ the sense of personality involved in all the descriptions, is very authentic, very real.( ‘indentured to the Gods of Cool’ is also a wonderful phrase to describe adolescence.)
June 20, 2012 at 10:56 am
I like that you have included your process. Nice Piece.
June 20, 2012 at 11:14 am
This speaks so directly, with fulsome measure. It’s poetry of the finest sort – evoking emotion without drawing attention to itself. Hats off and thank you.. wonderful piece.
June 20, 2012 at 11:32 am
I love how the title perfects the piece. i saw both posts and feel the clarity that emerged with the second (in steps of two) It is so often an awkward love between father and daughter, it certainly is for me. When I read your work, k., i learn how I have only just scratched the surface of my own delicate and thorny truths. ~jane
June 20, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Well, thanks very much – looking at your work, I can’t really agree with that! But it’s very kind of you to say. k.
June 20, 2012 at 3:33 pm
Sad and beautiful !
June 20, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Ah, geez, Karin. This really got to me. You evoke so many memories, feelings. Deeply moving poem that many of us will relate to.
June 20, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Thanks so much, Victoria. However, you are a very “relating” person! k.
June 20, 2012 at 5:33 pm
This is a lovely tribute to your father, a man who obviously understood that dancing is the balance that holds together in hard times. If as Nietzsche says, “And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once,” then it seems that your dad gained much and gave much by his time on this earth. I hope he had a chance to hear some of your dancing words while he was here, since they provide such a loving testimony to reality as dance, in this poem and your other work.
June 20, 2012 at 6:04 pm
The revision process can be both frustrating and enlightening. 2am I wouldn’t revise, tried that and while you wound up with a high quality revision, mine was, I’ll just say lost. Such a good prose poem, the final lines are just so good. The opening is a great set up and love the conversational narration throughout. Great read. Thanks
June 20, 2012 at 8:46 pm
What a loving picture you paint, in the syncopations of a two-step dance. All the nuances and deft touches fill in the time, the look and the sound of a particular time shared, that will never come again. Poignant!
June 20, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Much more personal than the previous posting I think, and more relaxed. I run into similar struggles when I revise poems, especially when I write about things that are close to me — sometimes i overly edit or direct, to the point I lose what I was going for.
On this one, this is heartwarming to read, and touching. Very much felt.
June 21, 2012 at 2:08 am
A fitting Father’s Day tribute to a loving father, K! It’s a treasured experience to be ‘dancing’ close in a relationship. A father is forever bent on giving to correct the imbalance – he has to give more than to receive!
Hank.
June 21, 2012 at 6:21 am
Thanks, Hank.
June 21, 2012 at 5:58 am
What a great figure to have living inside you, Manic ! . I think he will contribute greatly to the heaven you are in the process of creating for yourself
June 21, 2012 at 6:19 am
Thanks so much.
June 21, 2012 at 6:50 am
Great write. Love it very much – I just wonder whether in the time/space continuum, most of which is beyond the capabilities of our processors, any place is an ACTUAL place – never mind heaven!
June 21, 2012 at 8:52 am
You are the physicist! All interesting. Thanks much. k.
June 21, 2012 at 7:45 am
Nice tribute to a dad.
June 21, 2012 at 8:52 am
Thsnks.
June 21, 2012 at 9:36 am
I can see him dancing up there…
June 21, 2012 at 10:01 am
Thanks, Tess.
June 23, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Lovely, and a wonderful tribute. Thank you.
June 23, 2012 at 1:52 pm
Thanks, k.
June 25, 2012 at 11:10 pm
your writing, it’s like a dance. so rhythmic and beautiful.
June 26, 2012 at 5:21 am
Thanks, Emily. Hope all is well with you. k.