Dance for the Sick

To dance you to health
I lift each finger
with happy tune
while you mark time apart
in rest-beats, quietness
 
We know that Francis
and his ragged  troop
in monkish foolishness
sang abandon –  Nothing,
except God and Joy.
 
The music’s clownish beat
cynically rings out paradox:
in the Creator’s eyes
all things made are marvelous,
ridiculous – rejoice!
 
My world overflows
with love and flowers,
for you I wave their shadow
hands and feet paint Nothing
filled with music.
 
To conjure air
is ancient art
done for sickness
where body and spirit in the dancer
pray for their mirrors in the ill
 
(1970s)