Poetry is a dance
Of woven words
Crafted from the intricate print
Of memory.
Like that of a widow's woven art,
Patterns unveil the melodies
Of our hearts.

Then may we indulge in the fabric
Of love,
And dance upon fair dewdrops.
May we spin the initial swirls
Of sweet silk,
Beneath the shimmer
Of the resplendent moon.

Till the thread coarsens at a core
Of wearied entanglements.
The ghost of silk glows far away
Haunting the distant margins
Of our memories.

Scorch this knot
Of coarse wire,
Lest the dance of rhetoric will cease,
The fine fabric of love will sever,
The melodies in our hearts will mute.
Burn this knot. Blaze it with
the endurance
Of timeworn love.

The dance beckons its final stage,
Where we ignite the warmth
Of familiar eyes,
Lure them into a new dance
Of wordplay.

We are all but weavers
Spinning satin spheres
Dancing in discourse
To the symphony
Of our hearts.

BY MARILYN L. TAYLOR*

A reflection on my students

They are so beautiful, and so very young
they seem almost to glitter with perfection,
these creatures that I briefly move among.

I never get to stay with them for long,
but even so, I view them with affection:
they are so beautiful, and so very young.

Poised or clumsy, placid or high-strung,
they're expert in the art of   introspection,
these creatures that I briefly move among—

And if their words don't quite trip   off the tongue
consistently, with just the right inflection,
they remain beautiful. And very young.

Still, I have to tell myself it's   wrong
to think of them as anything but fiction,
these creatures that I briefly move   among—

Because, like me, they're traveling   headlong
in that familiar, vertical direction
that coarsens beautiful, blackmails young—
the two delusions we all move among.