Danse Russe

William Carlos Williams died today. I learned that from Roger Ebert's blog (because if I am horrible at remembering birthdays and deathdays of my family and friends, I am worst at remembering those of famous people). He writes about the red wheelbarrow, that poem which looks like, and arranged like a wheelbarrow.

I wanted to honor the day by thinking about one of my favorite poems in the world. Which is Williams's Danse Russe

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

Thank you Dr. Williams (who was a wonderful physician and a poet, a man of two stereotypically opposing disciplines but did both remarkably) for showing my younger, more impressionable, college self that it was perfectly okay to be alone. And to feel no shame when you just want to dance like a "grotesque" fool when you're alone. That's inspired a lot of twirling when I'm by myself in my apartment.