"Body my house / my horse my hound"

Abriel Louise Young 🌿

Aug 13, 2024

Mural Fragment Depicting a Maguey Bloodletting Ritual, 500–600 CE

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?

from Nature: Poems Old and New. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994.

Creative Invitations

Body as shelter. Body as vehicle. Body as friend-companion. Body as hiding place.

Choose one of these. Address the body, your body or another’s body, directly.

Convince it to go—or not to go!

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Pamela Overeynder

Aug 13

Thanks for this wonderful poem—new to me, and for the reflections. I remember my body as horse when I was young and wild— but already 50, racing down mountainside, no thought —cloudless sky. Now I am old and my mind is still wild and rearing to go!!!

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Anastasia Higginbotham

oh…! these are wonderful. every day wonderful.

1 reply by Abriel Louise Young 🌿

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The Breathing Field

Discussion about this post

The Breathing Field

"Body my house / my horse my hound"

Question

by May Swenson

Body my housemy horse my hound what will I dowhen you are fallen

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

Where can I gowithout my mount all eager and quick How will I know in thicket aheadis danger or treasure when Body my good bright dog is dead

How will it beto lie in the skywithout roof or door and wind for an eyeWith cloud for shift how will I hide?

Creative InvitationsBody as shelter. Body as vehicle. Body as friend-companion. Body as hiding place. Choose one of these. Address the body, your body or another’s body, directly. Convince it to go—or not to go!