Knowing I wrote poetry a tango friend once asked me to write a poem about tango. The result was this poem, trying to capture the essence of tango, entitled Canto Tango.
Canto Tango
Canto Tango
At night
the fire is lit,
eyes flicker, flame and ask
who will
join the dance?
We drink
in the glance,
enfold the embrace,
become one with music, stars and sun,
A man
and woman dancing,
with stillness
at the centre.
Forward, turn, back and side,
we are
white gulls gliding
over a
black sea. We dance
on the edge of the world,
as on a
knife’s edge.
We enter
the stream
and it
flows through our body.
We follow and we lead,
heads held
high, mazing the floor,
in and out, like breathing,
two bodies
one mind.
Nothing
divides us,
earth, air, fire and
water are one,
and that
element without name
is always
with us.
We dissolve
into one
moving presence,
frame and flickering form.
The end of music is silence.
Stop! Take one last sip from the dying sun,
hold
the flowing moment ...
then let go.
© Robert Fisher
