Boyer, R. L.

English

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Volume 2019 Issue 41 Article 20 7-15-2019 GHOST DANCING BETWEEN WORLDS R. L. Boyer Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle  Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Boyer, R. L. (2019) "GHOST DANCING BETWEEN WORLDS," The Mythic Circle: Vol. 2019 : Iss. 41 , Article 20. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol2019/iss41/20 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Mythic Circle by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact phillip.fitzsimmons@swosu.edu. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm This poetry is available in The Mythic Circle: https://dc.swosu.edu/mcircle/vol2019/iss41/20  The Mythic Circle #41, pg. 40       GHOST DANCING BETWEEN TWO WORLDS   by  R. L. Boyer  1.  The ancients knew what poets know: that there are  two worlds here not just one. I found out about   that one night while lying in my bed listening  for the beat of my heart until I heard its rhythm   grow strong inside my ears like the beating of  drums and I held onto that heartbeat rhythm   like a lifeline held the beats of my heart like  the steps of a long rope-ladder descending    I am still lying in my bedroom and awake  enough to see if I am really fast asleep or   not and my body lies motionless paralyzed from  toe to crown and I can’t move at all but   my consciousness is all there, alert and  watching with great intensity, wide awake through   open eyes. The room is somehow different  than it had been only minutes ago — before   into that bottomless well of being that leads down  secret corridors to the other side of sleep.   time stopped — and there before me, creeping across my  bedroom floor a thick supernatural mist    2. If only I can hold this rope on the other  side of that deep well ... my last fading thought as the   spell cast by heartbeats covers me like a blanket of  ether and without knowing I swoon into   that familiar and utterly mysterious  black depth until I suddenly awake there   — somewhere on the other side — fully conscious  within the dreamscape. But this is crazy because    flows like some great theatrical trick using  dry ice for atmosphere and in the mist I see   them wide awake through open eyes.   3. They enter dancing in a tight row to the  heartbeat rhythm still pounding in my inner   ear as they glide silently to ancient rhythms  — four of them — with the looks of giant kachinas      The Mythic Circle #41, pg. 41     4.  Suddenly, my left hand begins to stir and it  grows like magic into the shape of a long   spirit catcher — a great, long wand like a  narrow bamboo pole grows longer than a   mandarin's fingernails from my fingertips (longer  than a fishing pole!) and as it grows it shakes   itself faster and faster in a rhythm  perfectly its own until the spirit in my   hand begins to sing its voice low and breaks the  air with a loud deep rhythmic hum its mystic   vibrations fill the room like an aboriginal  bull-roarer. And as it hums a wind grows   from it and the wind blows softly across the  floor like a breeze as I lay here without   moving watching with my eyes wide open and the  wind moves swiftly and blows the mist away as the   black and white ghost men dance backward like a  silent motion picture in reverse right back into the   invisibility of the bedroom hallway  that leads to the other world.   5.  Then my eyes go dark again like sleep until  my ears wake up and hear something way down   there the sound of my heartbeat rising the  secret inner heartbeat rhythm of drums and   there I am again still riding that drumbeat  bareback like a wild horse and holding on to   that lifeline climbing out from those depths. I  awake fully this time — in my body — in   utter astonishment and the room is empty  now but still charged with the presence of the   ancient ones and the hair stands thrilled on the  back of my neck as I raise myself slowly to   look around and I think I can still see the  faint traces of the mist evaporating on my   bedroom floor. Outside the room a wind roars  suddenly vibrating like a great bull-roarer a   thunderous wind-spirit riding across the  autumn lake shaking the house with its terror and   I listen to that rampaging spirit wailing  out there against the windows of my bedroom and        I look down at her resting peacefully beside  me and thank god she is still asleep and    I know she’ll think I’m crazy in the  morning and I probably am since this   The Mythic Circle #41, pg. 42       kind of thing has happened to me before and  it will again someday too because...     6.    The ancients knew what poets know — that there are two  worlds here, not just one and sometimes if you    listen until your heartbeat grows as loud as the  beating of war drums the spaces of the two    worlds might grow together again and on the  feet of ghost dancers the other world might step     through the ancient doorsill that always stands open  between them and for a timeless moment ‘reality’    and the stuff of dreams can get terribly confused.       

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https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&amp;context=mcircle

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