The Dance She Danced – Part 2

The Dance She Danced – Part 2

by Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

They thought she disappeared.

Gone like mist after sunrise.

But the truth is she shifted. Like Spirit do. Quiet like. Smooth. Soft as silk in a thunderstorm.

Some folks said she just up and vanished like morning fog. Others swore, hand to Bible, they seen her dancing through the French Market barefoot and glowing twirling between the beignets and the brass bands like she ain’t missed a beat.

“Man, I swear on my mama, I seen her!”

“Boy, shut up, you was drunk.”

“Drunk or not, her feet ain’t touch no ground.”

See, what they didn’t understand was she ain’t never belonged to the ground.

The street knew her.

The wind remembered her name.

Even the rain tried to follow her rhythm, but couldn’t keep up.

She didn’t walk through New Orleans she flowed. Like water down a narrow alley, like light between trembling leaves. Like memory. Like prayer.

And she danced on not for crowds, but for clouds. Not for applause, but for ascension. Not to impress, but to bless.

The Creator moved through her like jazz through a trumpet unexpected, wild, holy.

Sometimes, late at night, when the air got thick and the moon hung low like it was eavesdroppin’, folks said they could hear her bells. Tiny ankle chimes jingling somewhere between dreams and daylight.

You’d be walking home from the bar, talkin’ nonsense, stumbling a little, and suddenly the hairs on your arms would rise up like they heard a story you ain’t yet lived.

She was near.

She was always near.

Cause when you let the Divine move through you like that pure, unfiltered, like honey dripping slow from the comb you don’t just dance.

You become the dance.

You are the rhythm.

The hush before the shout.

The crackle before the storm.

The Amen at the end of a broken hallelujah.

And Lord, she moved like gospel.

Every spin cracked open the sky.

Every dip bent time back into itself.

Every glide erased a shame that wasn’t hers to carry.

But you wouldn’t understand unless you ever got still enough to hear the Spirit tap its foot in your chest. Unless you knew what it meant to praise without words. To testify with tendon and bone. To let your spine remember what joy feels like.

She didn’t need no pulpit. She was the pulpit.

Every gesture a sermon.

Every breath a benediction.

Every stomp a calling down of heaven.

And maybe now she’s not just one woman.

Maybe she’s in every little Black girl dancing on the corner.

In every second line strut that says, We still here.

In every old woman’s shuffle that whispers, Baby, I still got it.

In every little boy who spin just because he heard the horn call his name.

Maybe she became the rhythm itself.

The pulse that makes New Orleans breathe.

The echo of freedom in every beat of that Congo square drum.

So if you ever catch a glimpse of grace turning a corner,

If you ever feel your chest lift when a drumline walks by,

If your feet start tappin’ with no reason,

If your eyes fill up outta nowhere when you see a child dance with no shame

Don’t question it.

She’s still dancing.

Still out here.

Still reminding the world:

Joy is resistance.

Movement is medicine.

And when the soul finds rhythm everything else disappears.