thanks raj. appreciate your thoughts.

Mark, thanks for your comments and I appreciate hearing when someone doesn't get a poem. Truthfully, I want people to get what I intended, but I'm happy as well when people might read into it something of their own. (I read your poem, "confessions..." and enjoyed it, and the comments following. I don't think it's similar, though.) to explain the poem, it starts out like you said with the equaling of the playing field (physically in particular) due to technological advancements. we don't need stallions (male horses) because we have cars, we don't need men to row the ship, because we have engines. but we do need power (horsepower) and we do need leaders (captains). most of the poem is a response to "traditional" expectations of women and men. that women need men to be complete (they don't), that women can't be leaders (they can!), that homes are broken when women don't submit to men or men don't take proper control (both can take control and both can mess up. we're all broken in some way at some time). the comments on becoming "more than just beautiful" is dealing with another hot button topic, that women just want to be wanted, considered attractive, beautiful enough to be fought for. but women want purpose as much as men (like the cat in a suit, which women wear now, too: pantsuits, etc) and to be valiant fighters, themselves. and men, too, are concerned with beauty (like the cardinal, which in nature, the male is usual the attractive one, not the female). and the cardinal "building a nest" is a play on the idea of males taking the domestic duties. ultimately, "we may become more whole together, giving and taking," is my point. egalitarianism. I am a spiritual person, a Christian, struggling with a lot of the "core beliefs" or at least Evangelical or Pentecostal beliefs. but I tend not to think that there is an order to the sexes, that a dominant submissive dynamic is necessary. but that we are help meets. equals. this was my way of investigating the subject on my own. we live in a world where there are many enemies to equality, or progress, or whatever you want to call it. but like the poem says, men have not always been trying to put women down, even by championing traditional roles, nor have women always been doing things out of spite. though of course, and unfortunately, men HAVE been abusive and women HAVE been vindictive or whatever you want to call it. does all of that help you to see the poem and the internal logic better? obviously my goal would be to get that across in my writing. do you have any advice how I could improve this to make it make more sense as something that stands alone? thanks again for your interest.

thanks for your comments, mark. for helping me see how my poem reads, so that i can think beyond my own writing, my own imaginations. i think that's one of the struggles of many poets: how to communicate meaning and remain fresh still. how to "stretch," but not too far. i will take this advice into account as i continue to write. do some poets just not care if the reader makes all of the connections? does that make it a bad poem in your book? we definitely all write within a context that not everyone can see. part of my growth as a poet has been the positive feedback of a few close friends who have some of the same life-vocabulary or life-metaphors, like "brokenness." this is not an excuse to write however i want, though, and that's why your feedback is so priceless. once again, thank you so much for your feedback! and so happy for your retirement! i hope you are enjoying it thoroughly.