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gravity by Bob MacKenzie

By League of Canadian Poets | April 15, 2022

POEM TITLE: gravity POET NAME: Bob MacKenzie POEM: it came to me soft and easy  lake water at the shoreline  reaching over warm sand  and lapping at my feet  telling me it has come  behind that quiet caress a lake waits to consume me  as with each step I take I move into deeper waters  where I may float away  this is no ancient seashore  birthing Venus on a clamshell  surrounded by her attendants  no lady rising from the waters  with a magic sword for Arthur  it’s true there is a lady in this but she has not come here as myth  nor been revealed by some magician  through illusive smoke and mirrors  to deceive an audience then vanish  if this were the dream it seems to be she would have come to me from the mist  backlit and beautiful as Morgan Le Fay  or I would have walked into the lake  consumed with love for her and drowned  she might be Heloise and I her Abelard  or I Lancelot in thrall to her Guinevere  our love ill-fated as Tristan and Isolde or star-crossed as aging Romeo and Juliet  yet this is quieter and is more lasting  in the beginning there were no hearts pounding  no excited hands shaking or knees going weak no eyes meeting across a crowded room and knowing  no running in slow motion across fields of daisies in the beginning there was only gravity pulling  this was the beginning of something not seen  a man and a woman circling each other  passing through time close but never meeting  individual planets with individual circuits and sometimes worlds can meet but not collide  time was suspended as the circles grew tighter  pulled by gravity toward some predestined calm  no big bang this nor brilliant flash of light as two circles merged and became concentric  making time and space where the lovers could meet  these metaphors are only the illusionist’s art  smoke and mirrors revealing what is not real  when the truth of the matter reveals the magic  felt but not understood as love appears and grows  and the story might better be told more simply  this is a love story plain and simple the story of a man and a woman passing  strangers on separate trajectories not seeing each other as they pass yet destined one day to find each other  yet this is not a Forties Hollywood tale  fraught with soft light and romantic music  where boy meets girl and they fall madly  her hair down as fireworks light the sky  and the boy and girl coyly dance until dawn  there’s something about the first person  that makes a story more real and intimate  so let’s pretend I’m the man in the story and you can make the woman someone you know  perhaps an imaginary woman from your dreams   not long ago and far away or once upon a time  this story starts in some not too distant past  she and I drawn together as though connected bound by a red thread we grow slowly more aware  there is someone out there and gravity pulls  our auras span the space between us and touch  through the mists of a dream we share our selves  feel the thread that connects us drawing tighter  circle ever closer without really knowing why  planets circling toward an inevitable conclusion  I could tell you the rest in song lyrics  fill in the gaps with romantic poems yet this love we’ve found is so much more  this love we’ve shared through all time  our love has no beginning and never ends  I’ll step out of my role in the story now as love between this man and woman grows  the beginnings of their love a mystery as though their love has always existed  and they have been lovers for eternity  I may be mistaken after all about metaphors  this story of lovers finding each other  perhaps this is the greatest metaphor of all  the love between this man and this woman  standing for all the great eternal loves  there is no script for this man and woman  no film or folk tale to predict their fate  the future of this love is in their hands  yet this story has been told over and over of lovers who search eternity for each other  I can add no more to this tale so I wait  I feel the quiet caress of the lake  reaching over warm sand to touch me  its waters waiting to consume me  with my every step into deeper waters END OF POEM.  CREDITS AND BIO: Copyright © Bob Mackenzie Bob MacKenzie grew up near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in rural Alberta with artist parents. His father was a professional photographer and musician and his mother a photo technician, colourist, and painter. By the age of five, he had his own camera and ever since has been shooting photographs and writing poems and stories. Raised in this environment, young Bobby developed a natural affinity for photography and for the intricacies of language. Bob’s poetry has appeared in more than 400 journals across North America and as far away as Australia, Greece, India, and Italy. Bob has published eighteen volumes of poetry and prose-fiction and his work’s appeared in numerous anthologies. He’s received numerous local and international awards for his writing as well as an Ontario Arts Council grant for literature, a Canada Council Grant for performance, and a Fellowship to attend the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi, Georgia. With the ensemble Poem de Terre, for eighteen years Bob’s poetry has been spoken and sung live with original music and the group has released six albums.

Posted in Poetry Pause
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