"Only the Dance is Sure"...help?

  • Sarah Jade
    16 years ago

    It's William Carlos Williams' poem "The Dance"...not the Brueghel one. I've read this poem over and over. I want to write about it for a literature course I'm taking, but I can't find any thoughtful angles on it other than that it merely represents "life." Any thoughts?

    "The Dance"

    When the snow falls the flakes
    spin upon the long axis
    that concerns them most intimately
    two and two to make a dance

    the mind dances with itself
    taking you by the hand,
    your lover follows
    there are always two,

    yourself and the other,
    the point of your shoe setting the pace,
    if you break away and run
    the dance is over

    Breathlessly you will take
    another partner
    better or worse who will keep
    at your side, at your stops

    whirls and glides until he too
    leaves off
    on his way down as if
    there were another direction

    gayer, more carefree
    spinning face to face but always down
    with each other secure
    only in each other's arms

    But only the dance is sure!
    make it your own.
    Who can tell
    what is to come of it?

    in the woods of your
    own nature whatever
    twig interposes, and bare twigs
    have an actuality of their own

    this flurry of the storm
    that holds us,
    plays with us and discards us
    dancing, dancing as may be credible.

  • kevin Boundy AKA the ghost
    16 years ago

    The dance is life you sometimes move at a slow pace like a slowdance when you fall in love and sometimes their are times when you move at a fast pace like your excited mess up and the dance is over (just like life) the point of the shoe leads the way (your soul) everything can be mirrored to be an example of life just make it all one extended metaphor at least thats my take on it