Some measuring starts at the wall. 
We teach kids —past here you may not go.
Unless you stop somewhere, you can’t begin. 
Is this why we dance on, after all?
How much of the pantomime’s for show?

After false beginnings, one step falls 
forward, then another, fast or slow,  
in a wandering line whose path beguiles. 
How much of the pantomime’s for show? 
Dance is all about the filling-in. 

Nowhere is the first place we all go—
a wandering path whose every line beguiles. 
Till you stop and breathe, and move just so
there’s no way to reckon all the miles. 
Till you stop somewhere, you can’t begin. 

Dance is all about the filling-in 
and music bathes the whole thing in its flow. 
Fire will haunt the scorched dry hill again,  
warming up the pantomime for show. 
How does dance relate to counting miles?

Can you sing the music we all know,   
a stag-horn blasting in a far-off glade? 
Only part of fire’s that inner glow.   
Hop the wall (but do avoid the stile).  

Keeping on will show you how you’re made; 
danger says you’re right to be afraid.