The Wheel - for Robert Penn Warren

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At the first strokes of the fiddle bow

the dancers rise from their seats.

The dance begins to shape itself

in the crowd, as couples join,

and couples join couples, their movement

together lightening thier feet.

They move in the ancient circle

of the dance.  The dance and the song

call each other into being.  Soon

they are one-rapt in single

rapture, so that even the night

has its clarity, and time

is the wheel that brings it round.

In this rapture the dead return.

Sorrow is gone from them.

They are light. They step

into the steps of the living

and turn with them in the dance

in the sweet enclosure

of the song, and timeless

is the wheel that brings it round.

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~ Wendell Berry

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