Zen Laugh and a Personal Memo

There is a song I dance to in class that reminds me of you, a song about a white rose, and perhaps a white swan, as fairytales go. You would understand this language, far better than I ever could. There is no way to avoid sometimes how your face shimmers in memory for just a moment, those first days when you turned to me and said, "Don't you wish it could always be like this?" Now there is nothing, not even heartbreak; there is a sad, memoried sea out of which a net can be pulled, tattered with age and use, full of shining broken things: cannot even one fragment be saved?

These are the steps I am learning now: but first there might be a silly ad, something the world tells us we need, a Zen laugh (the world is absurd, after all) before the memorandum I send into the air, towards you. The women will dance wildly at first, make different patterns, colors, like flowers swaying and pulling the air through their petals. Women are like that, sometimes. The next dance: when my teacher plays this song in class, you come to me again just for a minute, and I dance for you alone, taking up the melody like a scarf and weaving it into my hands, my steps, as I slowly spin, then gracefully let go. The last dance drums things to a close. Why must we close ourselves down so,  let go: who knows? Every day, man in my story dips the paddle of his kayak into calm water, leaving a veil of foam in his wake; does he do this to remember the woman who carried their baby girl in her belly, the amniotic sea in which they all once drifted, now gone? What is left for anyone, anywhere? We all are haunted by the sea which dwells in us. Here these words, watch this dance: you know who you are; then toss it back into waves which are the taste and substance of tears. This is the dance I am learning, these are the steps I take: just watch.