Dance Till the Color Comes Home

Pearl Primus, born November 29, 1919 in Trinidad. Blending African and Caribbean sources with American traditions of blues, jazz, and jitterbug, she created new and vibrant forms of dance. She is perhaps best known for her dance Strange Fruit, in which she portrayed a woman who witnessed a lynching.





Best to defy
If you are going to
defy anything.

Start with levitation
work on walking
on water
not making wine.

If you can defy gravity
einstein is an eccentric
who wore the same clothes
and rode a bike.

You ride don’t you?
Peddle faster.

Fix a gear
as you would a star
straight on till morning
wake in a never land
where broken eggs are healed
by ne’er-do-wells.

Strings hang only pictures
not pulled to advantage
or cut before they can become

Lean, lean, lean
into it.

Put your nose to the stone.

Put your back into it.

Leap from the pan
into the fire
never be a pot
for lightnings sake.

How else could scads
of scaled wings
the size of stamps
fly thousands of miles
and land on flowers
and imagination.

Handstands & Other Feats by C.Z. Vasser