It feels wrong to dance right now.
When there are people out there
Who think it’s ok or funny or cool
To storm our nation’s Capital,
To break windows and doors
While people on the other side wonder
If this would be the day they died.

It feels wrong to dance
On the graves of literally thousands of people
Who die daily from a virus that could have been,
Should have been,
Controlled months ago.

It feels wrong to dance
When respect for ourselves,
Our neighbors,
Our country
Has been reduced to a sad, tattered rag
Flapping in the wind.

It feels wrong to dance
On the surface of a planet that has done everything it can
To support and nurture us,
And that we have only deceived and decimated.

Who are we to dance?
When so many can’t walk
Or run
Or sleep
Without being targeted.

Who are we to dance?
When so many can’t leave their homes,
And so many others don’t have homes to leave.

Who are we to feel that joy that comes
When movement meets music
And creates magic?

It feels so wrong to dance right now,
To float across the floor to a beautiful melody
When there is so much chaos, darkness and ugliness in the world.

Maybe that’s the point.

Maybe dance is the antidote to this poison,
A light in the darkness.

When you dance, you can’t scream hateful rhetoric.
You can’t throw rocks or blame.
You can’t break windows or bones.
Your anger is channeled
And transformed into calm.

When we’re calm, we can hear each other.
When we’re calm, we can help each other.

So even though it feels wrong to dance,
Perhaps we must.

Perhaps we must dance
Because we need its magic.
That magic that happens when chaotic emotion is transformed
Into powerful rhythm.

Perhaps we must dance
To reintroduce order and flow
And beauty and peace
Back into the world.

Perhaps we must dance to save ourselves
And to save each other.

So dance, my dear dancers.
But do it with purpose.
Dance here, now, so your light can shine.
Dance to listen.
Dance to understand.
Dance to empower and inspire good in this world.
Dance with trust, reason, and compassion.
Dance for others
And dance for yourself.

Remember:

We are the music makers,
    And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
    And sitting by desolate streams; —
World-losers and world-forsakers,
    On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
    Of the world for ever, it seems.

Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy