Queen Anne’s Lace

I first met Ann Danoff pirouetting by the Lake in Goldensbridge when she was 13 (I was 17). I was really taken by her Bohemian looks, her charisma, intelligence and talent. I fell in love with that 13 year old and that love has never abated. Over the fifty years since then Ann and I have had intermittent contact as she gracefully moved from being a dancer, to being a Tai Chi instructor, and finally (?) to being a physician. It was always very warm and gratifying for me to see her, even though we could never pull the trigger on coupling. I’m reminded of Leonard Cohen’s Sisters of Mercy: We weren’t lovers like that and besides it would still be alright. I’ve never performed the song. I wrote it so I could capture the few romantic moments we shared, and so I would always have someplace to go where I could be with her. It may be my best realized lyric insofar as it reflects so well my impressions of her. Still, listening to the song only underscores for me how unknowable this remarkable lady was and is, and evokes another lyric, this one mine from a different song and time: How can a poet talk of distance to a dancer.  And finally, the lines from this song: 

Ann moves her own way

There is no choreography

are taken verbatim from the program of a solo dance piece that I saw her perform ages ago. For me that sums it up.