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."
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