Four Dance Lessons

This poem, Four Dance Lessons, was written by a student of mine, Paulette Fire. I love this poem, very much, so I am sharing it with you.
 

FOUR DANCE LESSONS

Lesson Number One

I was ten when my mother found a dance teacher
A friend of hers from Auschwitz
       A woman with an ugly face 
       A great dancer. 
      The teacher not my mother. 
      My mother had a beautiful face and was a pretty good dancer 
      but not a great dancer.

              “Did she dance there?” 
              “Where?”
              “There. In the war.”
              “Yes,” my mother said. “She had to dance. 
               If she stopped dancing,
                                                                              even for one day
              she would die.”

I wore a wool sweater pleated skirt saddle shoes
At the barre I did everything the teacher said
Even the grand plie´
               in my saddle shoes
The teacher told my mother I needed a leotard and ballet slippers.
But even with a leotard and ballet slippers
                       I was a beat or two
                                                                            or three behind.

When it came time for the performance
the teacher said I would be a tree
“Do not move.” 
                      I did not move.
 

“You were the best dancer,” my mother said.

How could I be the best dancer if I never moved

what about the trees in Auschwitz 
did they move?

Lesson Number Two

Before there was a word there was a body, and everything there was to learn  
this body learned.
The words came after
making up stories.
 

This body didn’t know how to make up stories.
It didn’t want to make up stories.
It just wanted to fall to the ground and shut its eyes 
and wait. 
 

Lesson Number Three

I was twenty-three when I lay down on the floor
                                                      in the middle of the kitchen.

“Get up,” my mother said.
                                                     I didn’t get up
She whispered (but I could hear her) “You wouldn’t have survived a day in Auschwitz.” 
Not like her. Not like the teacher. 
They knew how to stand on their two feet and move exactly
like they were supposed to move.
Following instructions listening carefully
to the beat. 

But I was listening
to the dance
that had been waiting 
all this time
waiting
 

for me
to
listen
to the words that weren’t there
and to dance.

Lesson Number Four

I was sixty-six when on my way to dance class 
I got hit by a car. 
Smashed and spun around. Barely able to breathe. 
But alive. 
And since I was alive I knew there was one thing I needed to do. 
Immediately. 
So as they covered me with a white sheet and broke the windshield and wrenched open the doors
and said “Do not move”

I began to dance.