The Dancer

(A sonnet in honor of William Shakespeare's birthday, April 23, 1564.)

Dancing in time to the song of your heart,
No small thing this singing ever of bliss,
From which you rose, your ev'ry loving part.
Beautiful you, you must remember this.

Everlasting impermanence, dancing
To your enchanting meter round the globe.
Restoring hope, so much more than glancing,
For those who do between your lines so probe.

Wherefore art thou so constant, love?
Perchance your eyes do note the beat you hear
While these my soles, tattooed so red as blood,
Dance upon the lines you wrote so clear.

Now may I say I am fix'd in my dance?
I am here willed, not here by happenstance.

Barbara Butler McCoy

["Ballet Olympia," Paul Manship, as conceived by John Portman,
outside SunTrust Building, Peachtree St., Atlanta]