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After retiring from Brandeis faculty, Karen Klein returned to studying modern dance and began writing contemporary lyric poetry. She performed for eight seasons with Across the Ages Dance and 15 seasons with Prometheus Dance Elders Ensemble. Her poems have been published online and in print, read on radio and television, and choreographed for dancers. The first use of her poems as structure for dance performance appeared in Prometheus Dance Company’s full-length, evening production Desiderare in 2011 and 2012. In 2016 she founded teXtmoVes, a collaborative of poets, dancers, and musicians; teXtmoVes has performed steadily since then, most recently at Starlight Square, Cambridge. Klein continues to study dance, to perform, and to write poems. She is a member of Steeple Street Poets and the Bards.

My Orion

Karen Klein

I watched and I waited for you
      waited and watched
as August slid into September
domino days fall onto each other
            woke at 4:30am
   hunting for you the Hunter
          you never came

Futon under the loft window
I stare directly up at only sky
    pre-dawn of the Equinox
         there you were
           right on time
startling    central  aggressive

Your  four stars separate the clouds
         your diagonal belt
          an arrow’s thrust
the cosmos your hunting grounds

On our axial planet eaten by ravenous fires
         floods gulp rooftops 
           earth burps lava
virus and pollution spoil the air

With Nature’s old calendar outdated
          it cheers me to know
         from your appearance
                     Orion

the order of the universe still holds.

— Karen Klein

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