Shadowdancer
(A sequel to 'She Weeps As She Dances')
Angelle M. Chandler

"Out of the shadows another draws nearer,
Out of the twilight steals one furtive light.
Shadows dance pain, while the light sings despairing…"

"Heart speaks to heart in the depth of the darkness…"
-- Mercedes Lackey - "Windrider Unchained"

I never thought to pass this way again.
Long days, months, years have passed, blown
as smoke, like the ashes of this once-grand palace
to places far beyond.
A lifetime have I lived, seeming at once endless
and far too short a span.
Time passes while we mortals look on, always waiting
for the next thing to begin, fearing to live
in the time we are allotted,
yet mourning its passing with cheated cries
when our hourglass runs dry.

Once I danced –
allegro, vivace
pointes whirling, arms flung
joyously to the sky,
breathing the music,
living it, but never daring
to seek the man behind.

Once I danced.

A thousand steps, a thousand times
I let it carry me beyond the rough wooden planks
and dusty velvet curtains,
past the catcalls and the clang
of the brass spittoons,
and the rough stage door where
the gentlemen waited
for a glimpse or a word or a hand.

This was not my life:
The garish makeup, heavily applied
to affect wide eyed innocence and
rosebud lips;
The frilled tulle and satin, dark,
stained with sweat;
The delicates pointes, their unforgiving wooden blocks
dyed black with blood
and tears
(for like the little mermaid, a dancer
steps ever upon a sword's keen edge);
The painted smile through the haze of pain.
The music took me from all of this,
lifted me all unknowing into a world
that could never be.

No more.
His was the voice of the music,
of a candle's flame in the lasting darkness,
of hope drowned in a single tear.
He never knew me,
never saw me though I was always there;
one small dancer in a crowd of dozens,
identical, unremarkable, alone;
one tiny moth drawn to his brilliant flame,
as we all were.

As she was.

His music lived within us all,
breathing life into unfeeling automatons,
perfect little mannequins,
marionettes without strings;
yet it was for her that his music grew wings
and soared;
for her that his fingers bled and his heart
devoured itself anew
each night as the curtain rose.
Her voice alone reached his ears.
His eyes followed her as she trod this poor stage,
turning its rough plaster walls to silver and gold,
and she the queen over all.
She alone gave light,
while we, shadows every one,
longed to fly,
to burst free,
to flame.

Now the music is stilled.
Though my ears strain in this silent place,
though my heart cries out,
"Find me, hear me, Oh, let it live again!",
there is only dust,
and dying
and despair.

Yet memory is eternal.
Gentle as moondust,
insubstantial as dreams.
In my sleep,
the sound of his music still reverberates
within my silent breast
as a single harpstring throbs,
kissed ever so insistently
by a stray and innocent breeze.

I long to shut it out,
closing my ears to its soft and soothing strains.
How can I hear it, pain
made music, love
made flesh –
Flesh born of woman
but barred forever from a woman's love?
Love inspired you;
Hope of love sustained you;
and her love at last destroyed the man
you should have been
(as it does in the best and oldest of tales).

The sands run swiftly now.
My glass is nearly done,
and I cannot help wondering
in the empty hours long past midnight,
What if?
Two simple words,
with whole worlds held between them.
What if..?
Oh, if I had stretched out a timid and trembling hand,
white in the deepening twilight cast by her smile,
would you have seen me?
Would you have taken it?
And might you have also danced?

I long for peace, for forgetfulness
and the quiet balm of nothingness.
How can I bear it, the touch of passion
long dead, cold with the touch of a thousand empty nights
buried beneath cold, remorseless stone?
Oh, Erik, unfair that you should have come to this –
Silent, alone, and forgotten by all
but one broken dancer,
whose dreams you inspired,
(all unmeaning, unknowing),
who dared to hope
that just once, for one brief moment,
you might see beyond the
garish spotlight's glow
to the figure in shadow there –
your dancer,
an adagio ever unborn.

I tread the boards again,
sparkling motes sweeping to life
beneath my restless feet.
I feel you here,
all around,
\in the sigh of the wind
and the notes of a mourning dove's call;
the only music that still lives beneath this
ruined dome.
I breathe it all, deeply, strongly:
the dust,
the withered tapestries,
the shattered, decaying dreams.
On my toes now,
I lift up my arms,
I raise my head,
and I dance,
the sun my spotlight,
out of the shadows at last.
My spirit rises
and my eyes gently close,
moving softly to the rhythm,
to the music,
to the everlasting music without end.

-------
AMC
1 June, 2007