Mayflies

‘Dance of the Mayflies’ read by Nabila Qureshi 

Dance of the Mayflies, Al Pittman

We who have known

and yet long for lasting love

cannot ascend to that space

wherein the mayflies

dance their dance and die.

We may lament the brevity

of their agile joy, their consummation

in the shallow altitudes of the air.

We may envy them the choreography

of their airborne ballet, their winged

copulation in the summer sun.

But they aren’t odes or rhymes

on wings. They aren’t symbols

of beauty or emblems of ecstasy.

They are insects who are born

to dance one dance and die.

Because our destinies

are less defined than theirs

we need to know there’ll always be

a morning after and always

another night to stumble, lame

and wingless, into darkness.

Unlike the mayflies (but maybe not)

we need to live in, living in love

beyond the limits of our own

mortality. We have to keep on dying

day after day, night after night.

Dying again and again, over

and over, for the next, only,

and always one more dance.

Published in An Island in the Sky: Selected Poetry of Al Pitman (Breakwater Books Ltd., 2003).