DANCING THE DREAMING
Aborigines on an Austin stage
Dancing the dreaming
But something’s wrong
They dance in stage lines not sacred circles
Men and women dancing together
Even I know that’s not how they did it
My Aussie friend points out that they have
no scars of initiation
Drug store cowboys
in five and dime dream time
The phoniness bothers me for quite a while
They are not really doing the sacred songs
They probably don’t even know the sacred songs
Of course if they did they wouldn’t be singing
them for us
On a Texas stage
in five and dime dream time
And yet there is something happening
below the surface
that starts to pull me in
The didgeree-do is made from a real tree
The circular breathing to blow it is there
strong and free
Something real is rising through it all
Something I don’t understand
Something they don’t even understand
If you listen real close you can hear it
below and through and beyond it all
Fifty thousand years of DNA singing