Challenging Poetry

Trinidad and Tobago: Limbo

we chant it, watching
the line of players laughing
and bending backwards—
how low can you go?
and the party starts,
each person rising
as from the dead,
entering life and festivity again,
carefree. alive.

limbo is where the dead live,
wandering between life
and death, heaven
and hell.
how low will you go?

silent, the dance graces
funerals, the bar
rising, the dancers more somber,
the colors more subdued,
the music eerie,
as life is celebrated
by contrast to the dead.

line count: 21

Author's Note ▶︎

Limbo is the unofficial national dance of Trinidad and Tobago. As I researched, one of the interesting facts I learned (from Wikipedia) was that traditionally, the bar starts at the lowest point and rises, turning it from a dancing game to a ritual. Also, it is sometimes danced at funerals. Although I don't have any justification for it, I brought those two facts together in this poem.

Limbo is also a religious concept, of course. Which probably has nothing to do with the dance, but this is a poem, so I went there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_(dance)