Blake's Dance is Crazy Again

for Emilia Macdonald and Liam Dickson Doody

      Who made you?
      Are you a Little Lamb?
Do you stand on four legs
stuck like flimsy sticks to secure tall finicky plants - the wind
confusing,
some wet nose nudging the balance?

Who made you and where do you come from?
Was it a matter of season and some shepherd
keeping score? An issue for all of us -
and you the issue,
from some crazy dance,
from a night of gambling and luck
and then more?

Where do you come from and who are you?
Do you account for us or are you the account?
Or is it up to us to say
what you are today,
and not
like some Innocent Song of Blake
to put only the creator at stake -
is it up to us,
do we name you?

Do we, predestined, always pose in the theatre,
our ironic accord cast,
the script always beyond comprehension, and time
always clear and steady,
ourselves the countdown -
always hand to mouth, hand to hand, parent to parent to yet
more and more always
to dance crazy about you
because you are new
and you are always the score
not only in ceremony
but in an anatomy of friend, lover, mother, father
and the crazy neighbour who plays slap fingered banjo and sings
the songs of Blake
today
in the 20C.

Who made you? Are you a Little Lamb? Can your heart be measured
now - so we might know your strength and so the shepherd might
know what you will yield?

Who made you - and when will you answer, so we might know who
made us? And music does rise, like in a big scene on the big
screen, coming up and we are caught up, and it is Blake's song.

And so we dance you and we celebrate you
and we say who you are always. And you are.
And you are stuck with this celebration of ours. For a fine while.
To be what is said, until you say - and to be alive and to gamble
and to dance and to start
under this crazy music
to make
and to take
issue
from heart.