The Night She Danced - Doug von Koss

[Larry Robinson]

The Night She Danced

A smoky basement in Seville,
cigar plumes hanging low,
a single bulb 
with a bent green shade 
lights it all.

Underneath the singer’s bleeding voice
an ancient rhythm throbbed 
from an old guitar and there
on the bottom step, 
something leaned 
against the wall.
 
It was then Delilia stood up 
on the pitted mahogany floor,
and danced the whole history of Andalusia
out of the night and into the room.

All those times of exquisite pain 
and painful joy.
Like the night the grandmother died
and the grandchild was born in Favencia.
And that year that the Guadalimar  
leaped from it’s banks and carried away
the lemon orchard and the mule.
And the time the bull with the broken horn
crashed through Alejandro’s bodega 
just before siesta. 
And the time the wine turned to vinegar.
And the Christmas mass when the priest died.            
 
It was all there. 
The winter shawl made by Maria Helena 
for the statue of Our Lady.    
And the perfect olives grown by Tio Miguel
on his dry and scorched huerto.
The music caught it all in a flaming cauldron
of blazing heels and chattering castanets. 
 
Delilia,  consumed by Duende, was danced 
by the joy the sorrow, the pleasure the pain, 
the sugar the lemon, the life and the death, 
the laugh and the scream.  The pain and the fire.
Nothing escaped that pulsing dance.  
We could all die!  Santo Padre!  Death is near!
 
Then a sudden dark silence 
caught it all by the throat. 
Madre de dios!   What had she done?
 
Delilia’s last step 
had smashed it all
without remorse.

Death was there that night 
slinking nearer the singer’s heart 
but Death left the basement
with empty arms. 
No match for the Duende in the room
the night Della danced flamenco.

	- Doug von Koss
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