Kate in the Toronto Star

[del.allan@canrem.com (Del Allan)]

In this morning's paper, there is an excellent poem by a Montreal poet,
Jan Conn.  The poem, Love As A Moving Object, uses Kate's song,'O To Be
In Love', as its base.

Love As A Moving Objet

Listening to Kate Bush on the slow
early morning drive to work
past the huge oaks and bright pink houses on 6th. street,
past a disgruntled man in black leather
pushing his dysfunctional Harley along the sidewalk,
it's going to be at least 90 degrees in the shade,
and Kate is singing in her passionate, articulate way
about being in love
and never getting out of it...

We all know what that means
It means to be stalled, trapped,
stuck-because love is a moving object,
like a duck to a duck hunter
who wakes up at 3 a.m. and dresses
in prickly long underwear and hip waders
shivers in the pre-dawn light, the clouds
racing, scattered and eerie overhead,
who gets cramps in his legs, who needs
desparately to sneeze, who strains to see
that fine line dividing water from air,
but listens acutely for their telltale calls,
keeps concentrating out there,
focused on the weather, the duck's weather,
he is like a man
who is very attendant to women,
who gives the illusion of intimacy,
the way the duck hunter takes such good care
of his beautiful hand-painted decoys
and guns,
the way he savours every sweet mouthful
of roast duck, later, after he has carried
the handfuls of warm dead bodies
by the necks and flung them
into the back of his pick-up truck
and called it a day.

Jan Conn

This poem was taken from "What Dante Did With Loss", published by
Vehicule Press, Montreal.  The author is Jan Conn, who has three other
collections of poetry.  She grew up in Asbestos Quebec.