gravity by Bob MacKenzie

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.