She was out front, moving like a golden fabric under the influence of the sky. The masses had been burned away by the sunrise, and those few who remained fled before it in silence, seeking shelter, shade, the infinite darkness, comfort. The Desert was wide open; the city, its arms spread like a supplicant. Sleep is death. I had died, and the world was pulsing with the joy of being alive.
The sun was still cool, new blood was pounding in my veins, my arteries, life carried out to every cell, and love returned, from every cell into and through the deep roadways of my being, the thoroughfares of my soul. I had followed the music across the sand, and now a silent call brought me on. I followed it, like a golden cord through the recklessly beautiful woman dancing among the bicycles out front, into the circus.
The Circus del fuego. Doesn’t translate correctly. The circus of the ending in English, but even then, how can you say that we were the performers, the lion tamers, the acrobats, the spectacle – and the audience. There was nothing to see, just those that still danced as the city settled down for its final sleep. There would be no beginning, no end, just endless motion, energy, dance is expression, shouting our stories with our bodies, dreams in motion: as I entered I was welcomed into the world with open arms, a new day, and this party would never end. This was my homecoming, and I was as clean and as pure in the sound as in a waterfall washing everything away but the core of my being. I felt like a star seeing the lights of the universe for the first time.
The music was our time and space, the dancers came to me and I to them, our gifts to one another our faces, our joy, our hearts wide open, and arms were embracing the desert sands. We were the circus that never ends. It beats still in my heart, and through my veins like a golden cord. Though the world has not changed, I see through that sunrise with golden eyes, and everything important has shifted to the sides, and the path before me is mine-one with the world or alone. El fuego is near y el empezar.
by Chris Konkel
