We'll Shout and Go Round, Shout and Go Round...

Oh, I wish I had written William Carlos Williams' wonderful poem, "The Dance." (See below.) It just makes you want to get up off your sorry seat and move.


The Dance

In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling
about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess.

So I got thinking about things that make you want to get out of the chair and onto the floor and I remembered this great old spiritual, "Zion's Walls" for which Aaron Copland wrote some music. I figured I could take a quick listen and return to my otherwise tomb-silent house. What I didn't count on was Jack, a sleek black wizard of a dog I'm caring for, bounding up off my yoga mat to soulfully howl along with the singers, tail wagging, nose-lifted heavenward. See, sometimes you just can't keep still!

Jack, post "Zion's Walls" performance

So take a listen and imagine Jack (post performance in this picture) singing along. (You can, too!)



(Jack says, "Every time I feel the spirit, moving in my heart, I will howl!)