by Dermot Mccabe

Created on: July 01, 2008

If I Could Dance

If I could dance, the stars would listen,
The brown earth would listen to the rhythm
Of my feet in counter-point with the first dancer
And every dancer, from all time and all places
Drumming out the endless heartbeat
Seared in blood and bone.
If I could dance.

If I could dance
I would dance with the whale
Waltzing in the deep swirling tide
Waltzing to her song in the watery deserts

Dancing for the sailor who never returned
For all the merry sailors who drift forever
Dancing for the gallant ships, for the captains
The midshipmen, the sailmakers, the carpenters
The sprightly cabin boys, the adventurers, the botanists
The surgeons and their mates, the hard drinking tars
The deck hands, the merchant and the pirate
The lonely fisherman far from the hearth
Dancing with them forever in the
Tumbling depths of all the oceans
I would dance for them all, Each and everyone.
If I could dance.

If I could dance,
I would dance with the wolf, with the polar bear
In the timberlands of Canada, in the icy wastes
I would dance, dance, dance in the freezing air,
On the Russian steppes, in Antartica's swirling blizzards
Over the groaning ice to the endless keening
Of the white wind on the frozen rivers
I would dance with the lordly moose
And the caribou endlessly wandering.
If I could dance.

If I could dance,
I would dance with the timeless mountains
A sedate galliard, to the music of the rain
The thunder and the singing of the forests
The loud horn of the deep caverns, the murmuring
Volcanoes echoing from the earths belly the
Thrum of planet flight through the void .
I would dance with Eve and eat the fruit
That Adam was denied.
If I could dance.

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