[Envinyatar]

Derufin’s eyes were on Zimzi as she danced with Falowik. Not from jealousy, but simply because he liked to look at her. She was small in size, her head tipping up toward the man as he spoke to her. Something funny, he thought, seeing her lips curve up in a smile. Side by side they moved, Falowik’s left arm about her waist, her right hand held in his, her left hand picking up her skirt at the side and swirling it back and forth as they stepped forward and back and forward once again.

Uien and he moved in the same pattern. She was like some bird, he thought, moving lightly through the steps of the dance, her small light bones barely tied to the earth. He thought once, when he twirled her about, that if he did not anchor her, she would fly away. Memories unbidden rose when they passed from the soft light the little lanterns threw to a shadowed area. Uien’s hair, golden in the light, darkened, and for a space of time, he wondered if this would be what it were like to have danced with the other one . . .the Elda that had first offered her friendship and leant him some small measure of hope. His thoughts drifted to another, then, now long dead . . .

Uien gasped as he held her hand too tightly. He eased his grasp, as they passed back into the welcoming circle of light from the next set of lanterns.

‘Sorry, little one,’ he murmured to her, slipping into an old familiar name for her. ‘Old memories . . . and now they’ve passed.’ He raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them lightly. ‘We are a lucky pair are we not,’ he said, lifting his chin to where Falowik and Zimzi were dancing. ‘Come let us join them. The song is nearly over. We should claim our partners for the new.’ Uien looked closely at him, her mouthed curved in a soft smile, as they walked along, hand in hand. Her eyes darted toward Falowik, a welcoming glint dancing in them. Derufin’s eyes were all for Zimzi. He drank her in with them.

‘Last dance, then,’ Zimzi said, extending her hand to him as he reached her. He drew her close, tucking her gently against him . . .

At the first strokes of the fiddle bow
the dancers rise from their seats.
The dance begins to shape itself
in the crowd, as couples join,
and couples join couples, their movements
together lightening their feet.
They move in the ancient circle
of the dance. The dance and the song
call each other into being. Soon
they are one – rapt in a single
rapture, so that even the night
has its clarity, and time
is the wheel that brings it round.

In this rapture the dead return.
Sorrow is gone from them.
They are light, they step
into the steps of the living
and turn with them in the dance
in the sweet enclosure
of the song, and timeless
is the wheel that brings it round.

---------------

-- Wendell Berry; The Wheel