June 23: Dancing Plague

On this day in 1374 in Aachen, Germany,

the dancing plague broke out as thousands

twirled, leaped, and gyrated through streets

and squares, in churchyards and pastures,

until they collapsed in an exhausted heap.

No one knows what caused this outbreak

of choreomania, but it had been a rough year

in those parts after a total crop failure and

widespread flooding that left people ill

and hungry and penniless and hopeless.

Maybe the only thing left to do was dance,

to abandon reason and behavioral norms

and let their bodies writhe in grief and horror

until what’s beyond grief and horror appears.

I wonder if it might again be time to dance.

Popular posts from this blog

May 4: Look Up

Look up! Entire worlds exist  up above your downward gaze— worlds of branches and leaves, worlds of falcons and finches, worlds of cumulus and cirrus, worlds of gusts and breezes, worlds of distant imaginings that might just lift you higher even unto the holy mountain.
Read more

January 1: I Shall Write Each Day

As long as mind and body allow, I shall write each day. As much as we attempt to put time into a box or straighten it into a line, the circle keeps going round, propelling the spiral of my life ever outward until the final revolution, which, even then, may not be the end. Unless and until gyrations cease, I shall write each day. And maybe every now and then something beautiful may emerge, something healing, something that sings and shouts and cries.
Read more

January 30: Awfully Cold

The minus sign in front of today’s temperature in degrees Fahrenheit seems like a judgement as much as a measure, as if the thermometer were saying that it’s so awfully cold, we can’t place it on the acceptable range of measures, can’t imagine how it relates to anything like normality. But the weather, uncaring, goes on, utterly heedless of our ability to cope with it.
Read more