I have a friend who swims in the lakes around here, and she loves hearing about where you swim. I showed her your poem, and she loves it immensely, as do I. I love picturing the queen of the Amazons swimming with such strength and sensitivity in a vast sea, and how the meter and rhymes are steady and exact, like a body swimming.
This revision is a let-down for me:
heading for the ice sheet, old, severe and loved.
gliding on time, believing he is loved.
It seems rhythmically fussy, and I miss the three syllable "believing." Don't we all wish we could be "gliding on time"? Don't all creatures believe they're loved? Belief takes on a new meaning applied to a wild creature, just as other elements of the poem—time, mind, air, waves—have also been transformed into something wild and "everywhere."
This is so great:
They'll be here soon, the horses, once they've bolted
to ride the element of everywhere.
The horses! Here they come! The mind is altered
by angels breaking reins in whelms of air,
I do like this revision, because I prefer the in/wind sound more than the by/bent sound:
re-created in the wind-bent waves.
re-created by the wind-bent waves.
The last line—I have met the horses face to face—has a million literary echoes for me, which you could probably list faster than I could. Yet it's all you.
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