I might have mentioned that I’ve been reading Sarah Moss’s memoir ‘My Good Bright Wolf’ – it’s an astonishing book, highly recommended, about Moss’s childhood, and how her eating disorder was created, interwoven with an interrogation of the books that she read, and the lessons that she learned. At the start of the book is May Swenson’s poem ‘Question’, which Moss describes as going through her head ‘like an incantation’. I found it very intriguing, and I think it could be about a lot of things which feel strangely familiar – the way that we so often ignore the messages from our bodies, for example. Swenson, who died in 1989, was considered by Harold Bloom to be ‘one of the most important poets of the Twentieth century’. I shall certainly be looking out some more of her work.
See what you think, and let me know if it resonates with you. I’d be intrigued to know.
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?
It is a very beautiful poem.
Good grief Bug Woman,
You post the scariest things. The prospect of leaving one’s beloved familiar body is so terrifying, but we’re all going to have to deal with it eventually. I’ve always hoped that consciousness doesn’t persist after death, because it would be so miserable not even to be able to sit down and have a cup of tea.
Well, May Swenson will know the answer now.
Sorry Mary! You know, I didn’t originally read the poem as being about death (though clearly it could be), more about the way that we are so divorced from our bodies these days and don’t really listen to them until it’s too late. But that could just be because I read it in the context of Sarah Moss’s book.
I have never seen this poem before. I love it. So haunting and rhythmic. I can see how it would echo in one’s head.
I found it went round and round in my head for days after I read it too!
Two thought provoking poems this week. I look forward to reading the poems you include, thank you!
“How will I hide?” is quite frightening. I prefer the idea that we come from and return to stardust and the concept of an “I” vanishes.