After A Kind of Hush

It's been a terribly long time since I last wrote in this blog... I hope the return was worth the wait...

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Two things have changed my relationship with poetry in the past few months. One was reading Camille Paglia's book, "Break Blow Burn", in which she comments on 43 of her favorite poems. Reading her essays made me begin to see the poems I read (and write, to some extent) in a different way. It made me more aware of word choices, imagery and phrasing - the spacing of lines and breaks and pucntuation... all nuances used in getting messages across. The other thing that affected me was I started memorizing poems - once a week a new one, every Wednesday. This began to really put poetry into my mind, and made me examine certain poems in different ways. Each walk to work now plays the role of mental catechism as I review the poems I've learned over and over. So, if you'll bear with me, I'd like to share among some of the essays on this site, my own personal thoughts on certain poems I've read and taken to heart. The first will be...


Question by May Swenson

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?


This is a very intriguing poem about death. For all the gentle nature and imagery used it deals with death and the poet's question of how death will feel - how will it be without this mortal shell she calls Body? And note that Body is capitalized as tho it were a common name, as one would almost name a beloved pet.

Her metaphors are simple but strong - she compares Body to three things: house, horse and hound. Three similar sounding words. Three common things everyone is familiar with. And with these she shapes a view of Body that is startlingly deep.

House - the Body is our house, our home during our time alive on the earth. We see the world through its windows (the eyes), we hear through its ears, we taste, smell and touch. It is the roof over our thoughts. It is the shelter from the vagaries of Nature and other people. Some also call the Body a temple, tho that description adds religious tones to the image. But here Ms. Swenson uses House, which is more personal and private, more comfortable in feeling. After all, where else are we more ourselves than in our own homes?

Horse - comparing the Body to a horse defines it also as our means of transportation. Even in a car or plane we are still travelling in our bodies - our House travels with us, one could say. A horse is also a beast of burden (workhorse), and this image can apply to our Body as well. We carry things, pull things, cook, clean , raise children and do everything with our Body. And our Body is best when it is under our control, when it bears the "bit, reins and bridle"; we summon its energy and power to do our bidding. She describes her horse as "eager and quick", ready to work and be put to a challenge - and that is the feel of a healthy, lively body.

Hound - the poet specifically compares the Body to a hound as a means of detection and tracking. The Hound/Body helps us hunt, alerts us to danger and also can lead us to pleasure. It leads us to food and water, and if danger is present, then the Horse takes over again, and the Body can flee. Without the Hound, how will the poet survive?

The poet mourns the Hound/Body when it dies, and there is affection when she says, "My good bright dog is dead" - you can feel the tears she sheds over the loss... a loss anyone can relate to who has lost a family pet.

The poet mourns the loss of the Horse/Body, wondering where she can go then without her eager mount - without the Body, how will the spirit/soul/essence move?

The poet mourns the loss of her House/Body, and fears the feeling of no longer having a roof over her head, or a door to close and shut the world away... she imagines the cold feeling of having only the wind and clouds for cover... naked, Body-less, where can she hide?

The overall sense of the poem is a fear of Death, and the openness and abandonment that comes from loss of the Body. When all that is safe and known is gone she wonders, "Now what?"... and the unknown state of what lies after death is left for all of us to wonder about on our own. She offers no answers, only... questions. Do we share her sense of loss and fear? Do we all cling to our own Body so strongly that we cannot imagine an existence without it? Or are we among the faithful that trust and believe in an afterlife that makes the Body appear as a shell any of us would readily give up if we knew what else there was after? An afterlife we'd gladly accept in exchange for giving up our own House, Horse and Hound.