Senbon Zakura Mirror Dance Poem by Marieta Maglas

I had closed the cracked window.
The first gust of wind, flute, drums, and
fleeting movements—
explosions and distortions—
vanished into the approaching rain.

It was like slowly dancing with
the image in the mirror, or
fragmenting memories of love
to clear the mind of emotions
consumed by the summer heat.


I sat next to a neighbor
whose husband had been
a soldier in Asia until
he was shot in half.
He had always been
among the best.

The movement accelerated
without music,
creating tension and
evoking feelings of
euphoria and chills,
similar to a movie sequence.

The dancers wore white sashes
around their heads and
pirouetted at a high tempo
to create a lively movement.

The window opened,
bringing the noise of the metropolis and
the smell of the wind.
It didn't bring a fatal infection
like those found in polls or
left by lost civilizations.
It was only a rainy wind.
These bacteria are real and
can transform into weapons,
unlike in Disney animations.

Life is not an illusion in and of itself.
When life becomes a hallucination,
something else must be real.
The hailstones hit the roof of silence.

The dancers expressed God's numbers
by waving their arms above their heads,
clapping wildly, and
swaying their bodies.
The dance did not appear to
be pre-choreographed.

Ancestral emotions cleared
the mind's clutter.
Crawled quickly within the suffering souls
and began to peacefully disappear.


Poem by Marieta Maglas