CIRCUS

Each year the circus

Came to town

I loved to see the caravan

Pull up at the large

Empty dusty lot

Usually a passage for a

Goat or sheep heard

Going to be sold at the market

Or on way to slaughter

But when the circus came to town

All changed

The buzz, the animals

The large white towering tent

My best show

Was the white

Andalusian o lippizaner

stallions with on top

the undulating ballerina

the dancing acrobat

around the track

Weaving up and down

As all as part of one

Circus B

On any given day

A vast desolated dusty field

That on a rainy day

Would turn into mud

Where puddles of water

Would knead the arid earth

That same spot

Once a year would transform

Each year a renewal

A caravan set tent

Just debarked at the port

Camping and setting up

The Circus, its large tent

the elephants, the tigers, the monkeys

troupe of varied circus people

European Gypsies

Acrobats, Trainers, Mechanics

the tall and the short

performing at the high tent

Striped red, so high, I thought it was the sky

As the tent would open to bring us in,

where ascending bleaches where set

My heart would almost stop

anxiety and excitement

my favorite moment

the drum roll

and the Lipizzaner horses

and the dancing acrobatic ballerina

tra la la la lala la la la

it was as I was riding the white stallion

floating, circling around

a magic space, the same space

where on any other day

plain earth sandy dust

empty space that was.