Charles Causley's 'The Dancers' (#poetry)

The Dancers

To a clearing

in the foyer

at the Gallery

of Art,

and a chatter

of spectators

waiting for the show

to start,

five young men, black,

naked, dotted

white, and daddy-long-

legs thin

out of forty

thousand years of 

dreamtime came lightfoot-

ing in.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

 

And a primal

stillness fell as

when arose the earl-

iest sun,

each dancer an

emblem painted

on rockface, or scored

in stone.

With an unpre-

meditated 

seemliness they took 

the floor,

staring sightless

as is lightning

through a bronze by Hen-

ry Moore.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

    

To an insect

buzz of music,

snap of sticks, high nas-

al whine,

touched with brown and 

saffron ochre,

and their teeth a yell-

ow shine,

five young men came

barefoot, dancing--

the sun halting in

its climb--

effortlessly,

forwards, backwards

through the littoral

of time.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

 

Beaded and in 

feather bracelets

to the hoarse-voiced didge-

ridoo,

they were emu

and echidna,

swirling snake and kang-

aroo;

razoring this and

that way sharply,

swifter than the bush-

fire flame,

each a demon,

each an angel,

each a god without

a name.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

 

Suddenly the 

dance was ended,

clocks took back the Mel-

bourne day,

and it was as

if the dancers

melted like a mist

away.

In the restaur-

ant I saw them,

serious, and at smil-

ing ease:

five young men in

T-shirts, jeans, with

pavlovas and five

white teas.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

 

-Charles Causley

 

One of a series of poems in the volume about traveling in Australia.

Charles Causley was a British poet from Cornwall who died at the age of 86 in 2003.

 

 

Arnhem Land is an area in the north of Australia near Darwin with a majority aboriginal population. I lifted this picture from Wikipedia, though the individual (Timmy Burrarwanga) in the picture isn't quite 'daddy-long-legs thin'.