How flowers will bend to the sun;how the night wakes a racoon
and the coyotes circle and bow
before crawling out from under
the brush and bending their noses
to the ground washed in the crescent
moon; how a child will shake and spin
circles until she walks like a drunk;
sometimes how a colt with a sock foot
will turn and buck and look wild
eyed at the others ruminating
and then buck again; even how the earth
will be still but the deer will turn and run
and the geese and finches-the crows
will all fly up and call
and in one quick moment the ground
will shift as if a few million
buffalo were rioting through the land
and the rivers flow backward;
how our dog rolls on the snow,
kicking out her paws behind her
and dragging her stomach then leaps
up with play in her eyes; that is how I love you.
3 responses so far ↓
1 mackenzie // Feb 9, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Someone kick me some comments por favor. I’m feeling like I could do something better with this.
2 mackenzie // Feb 9, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Also if anybody wants to rewrite it or do something similar and post it I’d like to see where you guys take the premise.
3 Natalie // Feb 21, 2010 at 12:08 pm
it’s been too long since i’ve read a mackenzie poem… especially a mackenzie love poem.
i think most of the images work well, especially the coyotes circles and bowing, before coming out from the brush, the dog at the end rolling on the ground, and the raccoon in the night. i’m not an animal person. i don’t know much about their inner natures, but i feel like you gave me enough visual information to work out my own interpretation.
I’m not sure about the child who “circles until she walks like a drunk.” this image poses too many questions. is she really drunk? if not, why is she spinning? and how does the spinning relate to being in love? maybe you’re trying to say how love can be disorienting? in any case, the vagueness of this image is working against you. i would cut it. also, it is the only image that doesn’t relate to nature.
i really loved the image of the colt. i love how it turns and looks wild-eyed at the others. i think this moment should be preserved, but maybe play with the syntax, tighten up the lines, because it gets kind of wordy, especially, when we get to “will turn and buck and look wild eyed at the others ruminating.” that’s just a lot of word for a pretty simple idea.
felt the same about the earthquake. i like the sexual undertones you introduce with the shifting ground and the rivers that flow backward, but maybe tighten up the wording. there are a lot of “the”s “and”s and “but”s in those lines. they distract me from the image.
anyway, really appreciate reading this. hope to read more soon.
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