The God of Love The musk-ox is accustomed to near-Arctic conditions. When danger threatens, these beasts cluster together to form a defensive wall, or a "porcupine", with the calves in the middle. – Dr Wolfgang Engelhart I found them between far hills, by a frozen lake. On a patch of bare ground. They were grouped In a solid ring, like an ark of horn. And around Them circled, slowly closing in, Their tongues lolling, their ears flattened against the wind,
A whirlpool of wolves. As I breathed, one fragment of bone and Muscle detached itself from the mass and Plunged. The pad of the pack slackened, as if A brooch had been loosened. But when the bull Returned to the herd, the revolving collar was tighter. And only The windward owl, uplifted on white wings In the glass of air, alert for her young, Soared high enough to look into the cleared centre And grasp the cause. To the slow brain Of each beast by the frozen lake what lay in the cradle of their crowned Heads of horn was a sort of god-head. Its brows Nudged when the arc was formed. Its need Was a delicate womb away from the iron collar
Of death, a cave in the ring of horn Their encircling flesh had backed with fur. That the collar of death Was the bone of their own skulls: that a softer womb Would open between far hills in a plunge Of bunched muscles: and that their immortal calf lay Dead on the snow with its horns dug into The ice for grass: they neither saw nor felt. And yet if That hill of fur could split and run – like a river Of ice in thaw, like a broken grave – It would crack across the icy crust of withdrawn Sustenance and the rigid circle Of death be shivered: the fed herd would entail its under-fur
On the swell of a soft hill and the future be sown On grass, I thought. But the herd fell By the bank of the lake on the plain, and the pack closed, And the ice remained. And I saw that the god In their ark of horn was a god of love, who made them die.
we started this #soapboxpoem series on #smallpoemsunday and I’m glad we’re going out on #twopageplustuesday — here is one of my very favorite poems, “The God of Love” by George MacBeth. thank you so much for reading this little series and I hope you enjoy MOUNTEBANK :) 🎭
