Please note that the poems and essays on this site are copyright and may not be reproduced without the author's permission.


Thursday 24 December 2009

The Christmas Fire-Dance


.


File:Boots 1 by wax115.jpg





My great-grandfather told another story about writing poetry in Dakota. It seems that early one Christmas morning he was at a kind of poetry bazaar. There were fewer boots available than there were poets. So a poetry conference was arranged. The one who made up the best poem got the boots. The winners were going away quite contented reciting the losing poems. They said, "Oh, it's no matter. When these boots are worn out we'll have to go barefoot. Then one more of us will get a chance to do the Christmas fire-dance, and so on."





File:Kandy Fire dance.jpg





Boots 1: photo by Carlos Paes, 2005
Kandy fire dance: photo by chikuado, 2005

No comments: