The Dust Did Roar

The Dancer weaves her many arms,
Slowly rising toward the night sky.
A dreaded goddess given form.

Her days in the sun are past,
back when the Earth was young.
Her fingers reaching higher.

Drinking the nectar of life,
greedily she hide it away,
Within her bower.

Now deep in slumber,
in the halls of Gaia.
She feels the weight of eons.

Long did the dark corrupt,
Stripping bare the flesh.
But her boon yet remains.

Now it proves precious.
A diamond without glamour,
more brilliant in purpose

Besooted they delve,
to raise up her bones.
The children of iron.

A new life she is given,
Light against the darkness,
a warm embrace against the cold.

Not without a price,
but who is she to deny?

The dancer performs her last,
before returning to the stars.

First off, yes, I know I mixed up charcoal and coal. It took me way longer than I should have to notice this obvious mistake. But at the end of the day, it’s all carbon in one form or another.

This poem is one of a small number I have written that is not inspired by my own experiences. I wrote it after a friend shared that their Ex wrote a song about them they thought was very unfair and hurtful. I decided to take a crack at writing something that they could be proud of. Their professional name is Charcoal and so I decided to go with a literal interpretation.

The process of creating coal and creating diamonds is not too dissimilar. Formed deep underground, they are made by decades of high pressure. I thought about all the struggles that my friend had gone through and how it made them a stronger person. But also how they felt that others often wished to take advantage them for their own desires. The analogy felt very obvious to me.

When I shared the poem with my friend, they responded to the final stanza the most. I had added it very last minute, when thinking of the ultimate fate of a piece of charcoal, the smoke from a campfire twisting and swirling as it rises to the night sky. I wasn’t thinking of my friend at all, and yet my subconscious chose to picture them as a dancer. My friend has since started training in dance.

Perhaps this is a lesson to not always go with the most obvious interpretation of a subject, but to rather let my imagination steer me and trust that it will guide me to where I’m meant to be.