The Ninth Dance of Christmas: A Benediction, Forbidding Allegory

[Print of "Ladies Dancing,"  by Delilah, 2009,
available at http://www.imagekind.com/art/stunning/dancing-ladies/artwork-on/fine-art-prints]

The Ninth Dance of Christmas: 

A Benediction, Forbidding Allegory

 
Under the order of creation,
and in honor of the holy incarnation,
and by the power vested in pilgrim poets,
I hereby forbid all allegorizing of the ninth day of Christmas
and the lovely ladies dancing their triple-time bourrée.

Leave all twelve days alone, for that matter,
for the sweet God's sake,
who shunned not skin, they say, for ours. 

For skin's sake, now forever sanctified,
let the mother's breasts be beautiful with milk,
let the baby boy's penis be unswaddled,
let the sheep shit,
and let the angels envy the whole blessed material mess. 

as they must if the Father said good

and the Son yes. 

No, these nine ladies are hair and blood and bone not spirit,
despite their sprightly dance.
Their dance means dancing, their sweat means sweat, 

As Christmas means Christ, and the feast food. 

And so my ladies--including you, Theresa, 
my unforgettable partner from the sixth-grade dance class, 
our parents trying to make sure we'd grow in grace -- 
break those terrible chains of symbol,
let your legs be light and lovely
like your sister the doe,
let your straining haunches reflect the glory
of your mother the mare

and of He who made.

If solitude is one, and dancing is not, 

then forget your disciplines and perhaps your directors

my spiritual friends,

spend some time in the psalter instead,

and practice your Ignatian meditation on Christ dancing at Cana

at the wedding feast. 

One night, one hot liminal night in July in Leeds, 

Astrid and I must have lost ten pounds between us.
We shone and glistened and moved like . . . no, not angels,
like lovely beasts made of dust and bone and mystery's warmest breath.
It meant something holy, yes, 
precisely this--
Skin and motion and sound and glorious musculature and the 
mysterious suitability of human feet for such a balance
of abandon and pattern and joy.