NaPoWriMo: Moonlight Dance

 

Sur le Pont d’Avignon
On y danse, On y danse
Sur le Pont d’Avignon
On y danse tous en rond

On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance there, we all dance there
On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance there in a ring

Come dance with me in the moonlight

We’ll dance where the water is wide

Take my hand and cross the bridge

Here by the waterside

 

We’ll dance where the water is wide

While the stars shine in the darkening sky

Here by the waterside

As rivers of birds take flight

 

While the stars shine in the darkening sky

I’m still alive for you

As rivers of birds take flight

You can see me, too

 

I’m still alive for you

As the geese fly at night

You can see me, too

In the quiet shadows, before the light

 

As the geese fly at night

Away in their honking V

Watch for the quiet shadows, before the light

And then come dance with me

 

NaPWriMo, Day 30  The final day. It has been fun writing a poem a day this month. Today’s challenge was to write a translation. Instead, I remembered a time when my very stern high school French teacher suddenly sang, “Sur la Pont D’Avignon.  I started thinking of the people centuries ago who might have danced under this medieval bridge (apparently the bridge was too narrow to dance on it) , and I imagined their ghosts dancing in the moonlight. A sort of literal bridge between worlds.

This is a pantoum. The second and fourth line of each stanza become the first and third of the next stanza, with the first line of the poem often serving as the final line.