I cannot dance upon my Toes

Photographs- Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

I can almost repeat word for word General Douglas MacArthur although in my case I am just a badly fixed b+w print that started to fade some years ago but much more of late.ord

I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that “old soldiers never die; they just fade away.”

And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.

General Douglas MacArthur -19 April 1951

But while I never experienced any military campaigns I have had access to interesting situations through the astounding access that photography used to bring to a magazine photographer before film went out the window and photographs no longer fade they just corrupt.

The pictures in this blog I took in April 1999 before M went back to her Montreal. I took the pictures and filed them. Only now have I come to realize that M had besides the skill of a dancer she had that difficult to define but easy to notice quality that I call presence.

This is not the first time that I have combined my photographs of a dancer with Emily Dickinson’s famous poem. I did that here.

I cannot dance upon my Toes —

No Man instructed me —

But oftentimes, among my mind,

A Glee possesseth me,

That had I Ballet knowledge —

Would put itself abroad

In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe —

Or lay a Prima, mad,

And though I had no Gown of Gauze —

No Ringlet, to my Hair,

Nor hopped to Audiences — like Birds,

One Claw upon the Air,

Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls,

Nor rolled on wheels of snow

Till I was out of sight, in sound,

The House encore me so —

Nor any know I know the Art

I mention — easy — Here —

Nor any Placard boast me —

It’s full as Opera —

Emily Dickinson

More Emily Dickinson

When Sappho was a living girl
In a library
A light exists in spring
The lady dare not lift her veil
I took my power in my hand
I find my feet have further goals
I cannot dance upon my toes
The Music of the Violin does not emerge alone
Red Blaze
He touched me, so I live to know
Rear Window- The Entering Takes Away
Said Death to Passion
We Wear the Mask That Grins And Lies
It was not death for I stood alone
The Music in the Violin Does Not Emerge Alone
I tend my flowers for thee
Lavinia Norcross Dickinson
Pray gather me anemone!
Ample make her bed
His caravan of red
Me-come! My dazzled face
Develops pearl and weed
But peers beyond her mesh
Surgeons must be very careful
Water is taught by thirst
I could not prove that years had feet
April played her fiddle
A violin in Baize replaced
I think the longest hour
The spirit lasts
http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2014/03/i-left-them-in-ground-emily-dickinson.html
http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2014/01/i-felt-my-life-with-both-my-hands.html
http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/03/currer-bell-emily-dickinson-charlotte.html
http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/03/and-zero-at-bone-with-dirks-of-melody.html
http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/05/charm-invests-her-face.html
http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/06/tell-truth-but-tell-it-slant.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/06/theres-certain-slant-of-light.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/06/then-mashes-it-to-death.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/06/adjusted-to-tomb.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/06/i-could-not-see-to-see.html
http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/06/blonde-assasin-passes-on.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/12/dirk-commemorate-itself.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/12/lawful-as-equilibrium.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/12/there-is-no-frigate-like-book.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2011/12/light-is-sufficient-to-itself.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2012/11/thanatos-two-tiny-rhododendrons.html

http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com/2012/12/you-almost-bathed-your-tongue.html

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