The Dance of Omission and Commission

The Dance of Omission and Commission

(A Performance Poem)

In the beginning,

There was the choice to speak,

And the choice to remain silent.

Two steps on the dance floor of existence,

One bold, the other, an echo.

But which step do we take?

The one of bold commission,

Or the quiet grace of omission?

Step forward.

The dance begins.

A waltz of words,

A tango of thoughts,

Where every movement holds meaning,

Every pause is a statement.

And in the rhythm, we forget—

That to act is to commit,

But to withhold is to shape the world, too.

Omission.

The silent partner,

The one who sways in the background,

Never asking for the spotlight,

But commanding attention with absence.

It whispers, "You need not speak,

For sometimes, silence is louder than sound."

It is the shadow that follows the light,

The unspoken truth,

The unsaid apology,

The untold story that lives between the lines.

Omission moves softly,

Like a breeze that doesn't rattle the leaves,

Like a river that doesn’t break its banks.

It is the gap between words,

The pause that can swallow time.

It is the silence between lovers,

The pause before an answer,

The hesitation that holds the universe in place.

And in this hesitation, we learn—

That absence, too, carries weight.

Commission, now,

The partner that strides boldly into the light,

The voice that fills the silence,

The hand that reaches out,

The action that writes the story.

It is the act of creation,

The call to arms,

The burst of passion that cannot be contained.

It is the gesture that ignites the world,

The word that sparks a revolution,

The choice that shapes destinies.

But commission does not come without consequence.

Every step leaves its mark.

Every decision, a ripple in the pond.

The things we say,

The things we do—

They cannot be undone.

They write our future,

Carve our identity.

And still, commission knows—

The dance is incomplete without omission’s grace.

For in omission, commission finds its partner,

In absence, action learns its weight.

What is spoken,

Must sometimes be weighed against what is not.

For every action has its root in the unspoken,

Every word has its balance in the pause.

To act without omission is to walk a crooked path,

To withhold without commission is to remain in the dark.

It’s a dance we all perform,

Whether we know the steps or not.

For every choice, every move,

Every word, every breath—

Carries its shadow,

Its unspoken counterpart.

And in that tension,

In that delicate balance,

We find meaning.

Commission and omission,

The dance of light and shadow,

The song of spoken and unspoken,

The melody that guides us through the noise of the world.

We are the dancers,

We are the music.

We are the silence that follows the sound,

And the sound that fills the silence.

The dance goes on,

From the first step to the last,

From the beginning to the end.

We move through omission,

We move through commission,

Each step a choice,

Each pause a lesson.

And in the end,

We learn that both are needed,

That both are sacred,

That in the dance of life,

Neither can exist without the other.

So, step lightly,

Step boldly,

And know that whether you speak or remain still,

You are dancing.

You are both the omission and the commission,

The shadow and the light,

The action and the inaction,

The beginning and the end.

And this is the dance of life.