20 February 2008 | Vol. 7, No. 4
Gacela of Flooding Love
Because your water is discovered by clouds
rising into the rapt blue abyss of sky,
now your body is love, on the rise, a mist.
There is no hesitation in your movement
nothing hints of your lightning speed,
within hours the river swells with your soul.
Carve grooves into the land, carry away the houses
with their frail passengers riding on the roofs
—what can they know of your love?
I fashioned a raft from the arms of a tree,
drifted all the wet days to wherever you wanted.
Fear rose and sank within your currents.
Each night the sirens gave their spindrift songs
to the torn out trees, their tangled branches,
their stiff arms grasping out like loveless fools.
I formed a language from the starlings and crows,
told my stories to the roof riders passing—
each caw and squawk warned of the force of your love.
About the author:
J. P. Dancing Bear's most recent poetry collections are Conflicted Light (SalmonPoetry, 2008), Gacela of Narcissus City (Main Street Rag, 2006), Billy Last Crow (Turning Point, 2004), and What Language (Slipstream, 2002). His poems have been published in Shenandoah, Poetry International, New Orleans Review, National Poetry Review, Marlboro Review, Mississippi Review, Verse Daily, and many others. He is the editor of the American Poetry Journal and the independent press Dream Horse Press. He is also the host of "Out of Our Minds," a weekly poetry program that features many of America's contemporary poets on public radio station KKUP.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by J. P. Dancing Bear at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 7, No. 4, where "Gacela of Flooding Love" ran on February 20, 2008. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
