shiva's dance

The bombs drop yet again
the violence spreads
Hate and aggression reign

We dance together yet again
Our concentrated bliss
Love and ecstasy reign

The bombs drop and children are killed
Flowers persist in blooming admist the decay
Men laugh in coffee shops, women wail in the street

And we dance, for our bodies must still move
We dance and we laugh and we surrender
Where in the world are we?

To take care of myself I must dance
The sufi told me that
I traveled half way around the world to meet Sheik Nazim
And he told me to dance
He didn’t tell me to save the world
He didn’t tell me to weep and wail
He said only “dance” before blessing me with a bop on the head

And the bombs will continue to drop whether or not I dance
And the scapegoats may not be jailed for the offences of their superiors
And the fissures may run deeper exposing the fear within
And the dancers will dance for they don’t know what else to do

Some stories say that the world was danced into existence by the gods
And that Shiva destroys creation with the heavy dance of chaos and entropy

My soul is released from its confinement by touch and play
Learning to be lighter I fly higher and higher
I learn to dissolve my awareness and the boundaries between us
And the bombs will continue to drop

I will dance on the courthouse lawn
In a costume made of peace flags
We will rise in our great discontent and awaken a new dance
with the protestors for peace, is that an oxymoron?

My heart bounces between grief and ecstasy
My skin bounces from keyboard to dance
My mind dissolves
My heart reaches to awaken child and lover, now
To check if we are all still here

But no bombs dropped in Corvallis today
No terrorists were captured on our soil
Everywhere else the planet is beginning to explode
Like the surface of the sun, someone watching from afar
Might observe the energy flair of fear and hatred

Perhaps I should learn to spin with the Sufis
Or just accept this dance of Shiva
The dance that creates through destruction

I don’t know anything any more
So I will dance amidst the bombs.