She stepped on to the waiting floor,
paced herself: one, two, three, and four,
while both admiring and envious eyes
either wished her triumph, or dancer's demise.

Softly she spun, gently she swirled,
with each flawless fouette her passions unfurled
onto the dance floor, swept into the crowd
where sighs, no longer silent, inspired aloud.

I came upon a house today,
though most of it had gone away,
and left behind its mossy bones
of listing piers and cracked hearth stones.

So I took a pause for pondering
in midst of random woodland wandering
to think of those who once lived there
where none go now but deer and hare.

My gaze took in a lonesome hollow
and found that it was drawn to follow
up the course of a clear spring
that issued from a small stone ring.