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Presenting poetry and dance as a unified art form

Silence of the Song

By Janice P. Egry, Verbank, New York

Grand Prize, Dancing Poetry Festival, 2008

 

When you go,

you’ll pack your bag

with all the glissandos,

all the chromatics and crescendos,

all the jazz improvisations

that you ever created.

You’ll leave your compositions

on the shelf to mourn the stillness

of their paper and their ink.

 

The day will break, early sun

will glint to gold the dust

that drifts on muted strings.

And I will drop into an easy chair

to watch a dark piano fill the room

with your silence.

The white, the black, immobile

in their beds, can only sleep

and dream your touch away.

 

There, in your easy chair,

I’ll sit all day and listen,

listen to a piece of furniture

do nothing but loom large

in the middle of a room,

a mute mahogany box

that will not speak to me again

however long I watch or listen.

 

Yet, meandering along my mind

will be your song, your rhythm

in my heartbeat, and my feet

will remember to dance

for having loved you.

 


Janice P. Egry, Verbank, New York, could not come to the Festival. Her Grand Prize Winning Poem, "Silence of the Song" was read at the podium by DPF Contest Chair and Festival Assistant MC, Judy Hardin Cheung. Photo by Carl Sermon
"Silence of the Song" by Janice P. Egry, Verbank, New York, as danced by Natica Angilly's Poetic Dance Theater Company. During the performance, the poem was read by Natica Angilly. Photo by Carl Sermon
Photo by Carl Sermon
Photo by Judy Hardin Cheung
Dancer's bow for Silence of the Song". Photo by Carl Sermon