If life is an eternal dance
then where does faith fit in the flow
of things?
Like the clouds does she gather up her skirts,
catch the wind?
Does she slot in arm in arm with us,
a partner leading,
or does she sometimes exit to the left
that we must dance alone,
wondering the moves,
whether our steps are set
or made as we go along?
If life is an eternal dance
does it matter if the thread is
severed?
Like the sun that sets and
leaves the world in the dark,
can we leave all of who we are
shed as clothes by a bedside?
Will it matter if we change our queue,
our places on the stage,
if the dance is eternal
and our places it in already determined,
secure?
Yes, if life is an eternal dance
then where does faith fit in the flow?
Like the wind is she ever circulating
our globe hanging here by nothing,
showing we are less than a breath,
but always welcome.
The dance so much bigger than us,
and yet still grateful
for all we bring
with our imperfect offerings.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
January 2021
‘The world and time are the dance of the Lord
in emptiness.
The silence of the spheres is the music of
a wedding feast.
The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena
of life,
the more we analyze them out into strange finalities
and complex purposes of our own,
the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity, and
despair.
But it does not matter much,
because no despair of ours can alter the
reality of things,
or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always
there.
Indeed we are in the midst of it,
and it is in the midst of us,
for it beats in our very blood, whether we
want it to or not.
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget
ourselves on purpose,
cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the
general dance.’ — Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours by Thomas Merton,
Living Tree Poetry 