The Bowing Out

It started as a slow waltz
Front porch rocker, book in hand
Slow
Friend to the left
Friend to the right
Sun up
Cool breeze
The dance was an old soul
Disguised by youthful ignorance

Someone turned the volume up
The metronome cranked up too
Warped speed
Weary-making, manic the music
Syncopated beat
Too fast, too loud the pace
The rate, the chatter, and the speed

She bowed out for a bit
Dove under the water to the ocean floor
The one of wet and cleansing grace
She swam down where the sediment sits
To sift and filter, like a sieve
Her mermaid tail was all she’d need
To rest on the muddy bottom in the dark
Muted and muffled is the world
Down
Down
Down there, on the bottom of the sea

She swam under the radar’s rays
Away from the burning sun’s
Rays too
For forty days and forty nights
She swam alone
To think and pray
And consult her muse

There in a sapphire pool
One colored in redemptive rest
Her dance shoes parked
Up on the bank, in the dirt
Exchanged them for
An emerald green
Bronze and azure blue
Mermaid tale, custom made for
Her

It wasn’t so much that her feet
Were blistered, tired or sore
Or had been stepped on by the
Other dancers out on the
Over-crowded floor

She feared she’d stepped on her own
Self-inflicted, friendly fire
And maybe another one or two
On the floor
It was best now for her
To swim alone

She told me her story before
She dove deep down
And asked me to tell you too
The woman swimming in the deep cool
Sea of  salty turquoise seas
The ones which will restore her
Soul
And heal her dancing feet
She’d like to bow out
With dignity and grace
And if you were wondering
She took her blessed muse