Your Face

“Your Face” is one of 10 danceable poems I presented at a theatrical event combining poetry, dance and music in 1990 in Fairfield, IA. The event, named A Dance Rhyme & Rhythm Extravaganza, featured 30 dancers and musical accompaniment on keyboard by Nathan Zumstein and poet Freddy Niagara Fonseca. I recited my own poems while dancing along with different sets of dancers.

Here’s a video of one of the poems, “Your Face” a duet for dancer and poet, dancing to keyboard accompaniment; the program cover and a review in the Fairfield Ledger of December 12, 1990. We had four performances on two consecutive weekends. There are three more videos from this event on this website, i.e. “Tango in Buenos Aires“, “Almost Summer“, “Spring Is Like a Young, Wonderful Woman“, and “Antarctica“.

YOUR FACE

A Poem Danced by Bonnie Gould and Freddy Niagara Fonseca

Choreographed by Gretchen Schaffer

Keyboard Music and Accompaniment by Nathanael Zumstein

Lyrics by Freddy Niagara Fonseca

YOUR FACE

Oh, where was there on earth

A face so kind?

Somewhere in dreams perhaps,

Deep in my mind?

How would it shine, though far

Like stars will do.

I’ve wished it in my sphere,

And with it: you.

I’ve reached for it to bask

Within its gleam

And held it close to me

Like in some dream.

It’s like the radiant star

I’ve longed to find:

The spark, the smiling glance

Where love is kind.

Oh, why then was I born

To misunderstand

Some distant star looking once

Like promised land?

Is love then only a dream

Of a face above?

Is love then only a sigh

For deeper love?

I thought that I could touch

A face like that.

I should have known that love

Is more than that—

And though we may have seemed

So close above,

There is a pause . . . On earth

I’ve lost that love.

And now it’s over since

I’ve touched that star.

I’ve loved a dream, and now

You’re fading far,

But why was there on earth

A face so dear?

For dreams of stars perhaps,

Deep in a tear . . . ?