I'll give it a quick go, RM...I can go on and on but I just took an Ambien! For me, with poetry, understanding it intellectually is just one piece. The great joy is when a poet's SOUND (read it slowly aloud to yourself, pausing gently at the end of each line, and wherever punctuation suggests) in some way echos the meaning. Here, the short, rhythmic lines echo for me a kind of loveliness. It's not one of those long ponderous lecturey poems. It's simple, soft in its shape. It has short lines, a gentle shape to the eye, too.
Hugs,
Hops]
----------------
The Heaven of Animals
Here they are. The soft eyes open. [a loving image, gentle, Bambi-like...]
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood. [they feel safe, familiar]
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever. [safe, familiar surroundings, eternal...]
Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing. [hmm. No souls? But here they are, in heaven]
Their instincts wholly bloom [they are completely fulfilled in their nature]
And they rise. [they awaken from death--but they're beyond it]
The soft eyes open. [now their eyes opening has more drama, omg, they live again...]
To match them, the landscape flowers, [the land, the plants are fulfilled too...ecstasy of beauty]
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required: [more beauty and life than we can even imagine]
Thr richest wood,
The deepest field. [extraordinary beauty of nature, but even moreso--hence the "est"s]
For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood. [acknowledging their true nature. w/o it they wouldn't be animals]
These hunt, as they have done
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,
More deadly than they can believe. [if they were predators, they are superbly so in heaven]
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey [the prey's vulnerable backs are made sacred by "bright"]
May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy. [there's no violence, it's a timeless leap as they hunt]
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life, [the prey aminals aren't upset about being prey]
Their reward: to walk
Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them, [they know the predator awaits]
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain [but there is no pain or suffering in their role as prey here]
At the cycles center,
They tremble, they walk [this line suggests willingness to be vulnerable, to move toward it]
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torm, [they are wounded by the predator, but there's no pain for them]
They rise, they walk again. [they are not killed as we know killing, they are always resurrected]
