Gerry Jacobson

Towards the One

I am amorphous, without shape or form, in the void of adolescence; nameless desires, lusts. For what? Not knowing what.

hesitant
inside the dance
my hands
embrace the space
between moving bodies

Hankering for the rapture of first love; my loss of faith as she sails away with someone else. Lonely nights in the forest. So much resentment, passing over the giving and generosity of another love, and the guilt that’s haunted me to this day.

pas de deux . . .
she dances slowly
towards me
across the room . . .
I’m paralysed

Then one day I knock on the door of a whitewashed villa with climbing roses on its trellised walls. You meet me at the door, the pale blue of a fair-isle sweater reflected in your eyes; and me struck dumb, going through the motions.

mind thinks
and body moves
beneath
the thoughts, the dance
are dreams and longings

Life seems complete now, animus and anima. Holding hands in the grey streets of Melbourne. We climb mountains and skip down spurs. I am not alone, but within me is loneliness.

I dance solo
within my cocoon
aware
of dancing together
in our cocoon

Agony of separation, joy of coming together, sense of partnering. How wobbly I am: deep down I wrestle, wanting someone. My incompleteness struggling with unfulfilled desire.

feeling
the restless energy
of another . . .
am I supported
am I constrained?

And so it drifts, into the acceptance of the passing years. That we are human.

sensing
the end of the dance
moving
with sublime slowness
towards a still point

---

About the Author:

Gerry Jacobson lives in Canberra, Australia, and can be found writing tanka in its cafés. He was a geologist in a past life and now celebrates reincarnation as a dancer.