Christine Taylor Shares A Kissing Dynamite Selection

On her final day as Featured Artist, we asked Christine Taylor to share with us one of her favourite pieces from Kissing Dynamite, and explain to us why it got into her head.

Image from Kissing Dynamite Issue 3

Favorite piece from Kissing Dynamite

I have had the honor of publishing so many excellent poems in Kissing Dynamite, and of them, my favorite remains “Look for Rain When the Crow Flies Low” by Ronny Ford in Issue 3 “Funhouse Mirror.”  Ronny was our featured poet in March, and in his commentary for the poem, he shared details about his childhood growing up on a farm and the local wisdom and proverbs that he was accustomed to hearing.  One of these sayings “look for rain when the crow flies low” divines the weather, but Ronny notes that weather, like so much in our lives, is unpredictable.

I don’t know what it’s like to grow up on a farm (I’ve lived in this urban/suburban house my whole life and can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve been on a farm), so I appreciated being transported to an experience outside my own.  But we do have our fair share of local sayings, so I was drawn to the expression of how other folks try to make sense of life and the environment.  In the poem, the speaker talks about the unpredictability of the wind:

“There is no bird        willing to lower itself

             to become false-prophet and forecast in a language spoken by no-one.”

This line has sat with me so many months later as a reminder to accept that we cannot, and should not expect to, control all that exists around us and rather find our place as part of the rhythm of our environment.