Dancers

By Dave Goulder


Tall stone, fixed in a garish pas-de-deux
fourteen weathered blocks, and

one other.

A dancing master? A luckless spectator

or a sad

fiddler making for home when the Sabbath

hour was struck? Legend says

a second fiddler
appears, just as the first

puts down his bow. The newcomer,
a better player by far, driving

dancers even faster, in a manic

reel, feet breaking earth. Ankle deep.


A dark fellow in a
dark hat

holds the instrument
in the crook of the arm. Not high

like an angel.

The Story of 'Dancers'

For Dave’s 65th birthday Mary Goulder made a dance project to accompany a strathspey which she had commissioned from Ian Sinclair, a good friend and an excellent fiddler/composer in Dunnet. The tune, ‘Dave Goulder, Master Craftsman’ deserved a dance! In the end the project produced four dances and a short book, called ‘The Strathspey Project’. For the book Mary wanted something relevant for the front cover. Dave offered to build two stone dancers (pictured above) and also provided this poem for the book.