Question by May Swenson

[modernwizard]

Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do when you are fallen

Where will I sleep
How will I ride
What will I hunt

Where can I go
without my mount
all eager and quick
How will I know
in thicket ahead
is danger or treasure
when Body my good
bright dog is dead

How will it be
to lie in the sky
without roof or door
and wind for an eye

With cloud for shift
how will I hide?

Swenson does the best poetry of the body. I love the enjambment in "Body my good / bright dog is dead." It's like the speaker loves life so much that she actually breaks off in the middle of the thought before getting to "dead" because she's so stuck on the goodness and brightness of being an embodied being. I also like the phrase "wind for an eye" because it implicitly continues the house metaphor by subtly recalling the etymology of "window," from Old Norse "vindauga," or "wind's eye."

Comments

[seventhbard]

Something about this makes me think of She Had Some Horses, which is probably one of my favorite poems. It's something in the rhythm, this is more... joyful than SHSH, more unbridled, if you will pardon the pun.

Anyway, I really like it.