"Dancing with God" by Stephen Dunn

Stephen Dunn has written fifteen collections of poetry. He won many awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Dancing with God
by Stephen Dunn
At first the surprise
of being singled out,
the dance floor crowded
and me not looking my best,
a too-often-worn dress
and the man with me
a budding casualty
of one repetition too much.
God just touched his shoulder
and he left.
Then the confirmation
of an old guess:
God was a wild god,
into the most mindless rock,
but graceful,
looking—this excited me—
like no one I could love,
cruel mouth, eyes evocative
of promises unkept.
I never danced better, freer,
as if dancing were my way
of saying how easily
I could be with him, or apart.
When the music turned slow
God held me close
and I felt for a moment
I’d mistaken him,
that he was Death
and this the famous embrace
before the lights go out.
But God kept holding me
and I him
until the band stopped
and I stood looking at a figure
I wanted to slap
or forgive for something,
I couldn’t decide which.
He left then, no thanks,
no sign
that he’d felt anything
more than an earthly moment
with someone who could’ve been
anyone on earth.
To this day I don’t know why
I thought he was God,
though it was clear
there was no going back
to the man who brought me,
nice man
with whom I’d slept
and grown tired,
who danced wrong,
who never again
could do anything right.

The girl is at a dance with a not suitable date and her “too-often-worn dress” she believes to “not looking her best.” We may not be looking our best when God comes to us. We can be beaten down, in a tough of our life waiting for the peak to come. God comes in and saves that day or according to the poem comes in and asks her to dance. Being with God, many become freer and can find happiness with Him. Even as wild as the music was, God was still there dancing along just like God will hold on in the wild, crazy parts of someone’s life. “When the music turned slow God held me close” it’s when God holds people even when their life is slow. Even when He leaves after dancing, God still cares. Mistaking God for death, the girl felt at peace with it, like she was in heaven with God at that point. The metaphor shows that God is always around at all points in our life and He can come to us in our need to help bring us to Him. At the end of the poem, the girl cannot go back to the man she can with because he is of little relevance to her life, now that God has danced with her. This poem is like when God finds us in our low points-although he can find us in our high as well- we feel him with us, we can see that he is there and wants us. God helps us find who we are meant to be with and watch as people come and go in our lives for a reason. 

"Driving Glove" by Claudia Emerson

Claudia Emerson was born January 13, 1957. She has honors including Pulitzer Prize nominations and won it for Late Wife (2005).

Driving Glove
by Claudia Emerson
I was unloading groceries from the trunk
of what had been her car, when the glove floated
up from underneath the shifting junk-
a crippled umbrella, the jack, ragged
maps. I knew it was not one of yours,
this more delicate, soft, made from hide
of a kid or lamb.It still remembered
her hand, the creases where her fingers


had bent to hold the wheel, the turn
of her palm, smaller than mine. There was
nothing else to do but return it -
let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water
to rest on the bottom where I have not
forgotten it remains - persistent in its loss."

This short quaint poem of two stanzas changes the tone from a once distance memory about a lady to a full flood of the memory where as the speaker must take a moment to catch her breath. While unpacking groceries from the car, a driving glove comes up from "the shifting junk." It is at a point where the speaker is trying to remember back to a time when a woman was still alive. It is not "one of yours, thus more delicate, soft, made from the hide of a kid or lamb,” may refer to it that it is not her father’s glove, but maybe her mother’s. The break after the speaker describes the woman's hand shifts the tone. This drop off in the middle of the sentence suggests that the speaker has had the full memory of a tragedy that had happened, but is not described. The speaker needs to take a breath. A new heart reaching memory floods in and the tone shifts from a calm, melancholy tone into an emotional, mournful whirl. The mournful speaker does not want the memory to be lost. It is placed back where it is found, "return it-let it drift, sink, slow as a leaf through water to rest on the bottom." This memory will not be forgotten, even as the inference of the speaker leaving the car and glove behind to leave the woman's touch where it is remembered most.