A Dance with Wanderers: A Poem by Ikbale Bouziane

It was a dreamy autumn’s evening. In this land, everything dances during this time of the year. Unlike in my rocky country, the golden leaves irresistibly sway with the breeze down to the fertile soil. Some of them would proudly hold up to the branches awaiting the gentle rain to rinse them away. In this land, even leaves make their own choices.

It was too tempting outside for me to lock myself in my cold dorm. I decided I wanted to spin to the melody of life. Everything started when my international fellows convinced me to go to the Contra Dance event taking place in downtown Orono.

The entire world has forever been our dance floor. However, all the history classes they made us take immunized us from divulging what it really was. My world, at least that night, had never been as harmonious.

“Get a partner from the opposite sex. If you cannot find them, pretend to be one,” said the one-eyed dance master. His voice echoed years of nostalgia and a joyful sorrow. “I want you to just dance,” he added “do not worry about your steps.” I thought to myself “Oh, just like time, music waits for no man!”

I was there, a trustworthy witness of the world getting together. I saw Russians swing Americans, Buddhists sway Muslims, and Blacks melting into Whites varnishing the atmosphere with a silvery grey tint setting the ballroom in a 60’s ambience.

The ladies’ elegantly twisting flowery dresses got me hypnotized. The steady gaze at my numerous partners’ eyes took me in journeys through every single soul. The touch of their hands upon my ribs cast a contagious thrill throughout my veins. They got me into a mystical trance, vitalized every bit of me, ethereally released me and watched me collapse under the divine cadence.

Written on 9.12.2017 in Orono, Maine by Ikbale Bouziane, a 2017-18 Moroccan Global UGRAD student at The University of Maine