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By Robert Hass
September 13, 1998
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When Mark McGwire was taking his victory lap the other night, half
dancing and half jogging around the bases after hitting his 62nd home run
of the season, my companion, who takes a quizzical philosophical interest
in the bodies of baseball players, murmured, "When Body, my good bright
dog . . . " She was quoting May Swenson, a wonderful and not very
well-known poet -- she died in 1989 at the age of 75 -- in the quirky
tradition of Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop. Here is the poem:
Question
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," by May Swenson. Published by
Macmillan. Copyright May Swenson. Reprinted by permission.
Robert Hass, former U.S. poet laureate, is the author, most recently, of the collection "Sun Under Wood."
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