The New Compass: A Critical Review

 

 

[Home]   [About TNC]   [Current Issue]   [Archive]   [Editorial Board]   [Submissions]   [Contact]

 

 

Summer Dances

 

Carmen Bugan

 

 

When gypsies played accordions

We turned into colliding winds

At corners of unpaved streets:

dust,

 sweat,

 bells,

high-heels,

 

 

  waists

undulated

 between

 rough hands!

 

 

The cherries in the orchard turned red with envy

As summers grew into burning.

 

That was long ago and far from here.

It is quiet at the window and the sound

Of the street accordion starts a slow burning

In my face: I am trying to remember how

The turning of the hora and the sirba stopped:

Were we turned into pillars of salt frozen into dance,

Because we looked back at our countries from

The eyes of the planes we first flew?

Or did we simply tire of whirlwinds

As the aching bones do?

 

 

 

 

 

Bugan, Carmen. “Summer Dances. The New Compass: A Critical Review 3 (June 2004) <http://www.thenewcompass.ca/jun2004/bugan.html>