-
Behind matter there is some kind of heat, around
and behind things,so that what we experience is not the turtle nor the
night only,not the rising whirlwind, not the certainty, nor the steady gaze.
..
~ Robert Bly -
I’d like to have spent my life making
Clothespins. Nothing would be harmed,
Except some pines, probably on land
I owned and would replant. I’d see
My work on clotheslines near some lake,
Up north on a day in October,
Perhaps twelve clothespins, the wood
Still fresh, and a light wind blowing.Robert Bly, Clothespins -
Somebody showed off and tried to tell the truth
And drank wine and went to bed. Someone
Woke in the night and wanted his children
To walk in the grass on this island under the stars.
.
Someone was lucky. Someone had eyes and found
Stars. Someone had feet and found grass.
Someone loved thought, and knew things to learn.
Someone could turn in the river and go up or down.
.
Someone thought he was unlucky, thought he didn’t try
To tell the truth. Someone thought his head was dark.
Someone tried to feel as bad as others did; someone
Flapped along the ground to draw the fox to him.
.
Tell him, friends, that the nest is now gone;
Tell him the little twigs are all dispersed.
Tell him all he has to do is walk under stars.
Tell him the fox has long since eaten his dinner.
.Robert Bly, Visiting Sand Island -
The soul said, “Give me something to look at.”
So I gave her a farm. She said,
“It’s too large.” So I gave her a field.
The two of us sat down.
.
Sometimes I would fall in love with a lake
Or a pine cone. But I liked her
Most. She knew it.
“Keep writing,” she said.
.
So I did. Each time the new snow fell,
We would be married again.
The holy dead sat down by our bed.
This went on for years.
.
“This field is getting too small,” she said.
“Don’t you know anyone else
To fall in love with?”
What would you have said to Her?
.Robert Bly, Conversation with the Soul -
There’s a boy in you about three
Years old who hasn’t learned a thing for thirty
Thousand years. Sometimes it’s a girl.
.
This child had to make up its mind
How to save you from death. He said things like:
“Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk.”
.
You live with this child, but you don’t know it.
You’re in the office, yes, but live with this boy
At night. He’s uninformed, but he does want
.
To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy
You survived a lot. He’s got six big ideas.
Five don’t work. Right now he’s repeating them to you.
.Robert Bly, One Source of Bad Information -
There’s something dangerous
In being with good talkers.
.
The fly’s stories of his ancestors
Don’t mean much to the frog.
.
I can’t be the noisy person I am
If you don’t stop talking.
.
Some people talk so brilliantly
That we get small and vanish.
.
The shadows near that Dutch woman
Tell you that Rembrandt is a good listener.
.Robert Bly -
There’s a graceful way of doing things. Birch branches
Curve slightly upward; or the wind brings a few
snowflakes down, and then joins the night;
Or you leave me a sprig of chervil and no more.
.
Each morning we have this new chance. We can walk
A few steps behind the others down the mountain;
We can enter a conversation as if we were blessed,
Not insisting on our old way of gaining pity.
.
There’s a way you have of knowing what another
May need ahead of time, before the party
Begins, as smoke sometimes disappears
Downward among branches. And I’ve learned
.
From you this new way of letting a poem be.
.Robert Bly
from Morning Poems
-
A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do not long
at this moment to be older, or younger, nor born
in any other nation, or time, or place.
They are content to be where they are, talking or not talking.
Their breaths together feed someone whom we do not know.
The man sees the way his fingers move;
he sees her hands close around a book she hands to him.
They obey a third body they have in common.
They have made a promise to love that body.
Age may come, parting may come, death will come.
A man and woman sit near each other;
as they breathe they feed someone we do not know,
someone we know of, whom we have never seen.Robert Bly, The Third Body -
What is sorrow for? It is a storehouse
Where we store wheat, barleey, corn and tears.
We step to the door on a round stone,
And the storehouse feeds all the birds of sorrow.
And I say to myself: Will you have
Sorrow at last? Go on, be cheerful in autumn,
Be stoic, yes, be tranquil, calm;
Or in the valley of sorrows spread your wings.
Robert Bly, from: ’Turkish Pears In August’ (2007)
-
The Viking ship sails into the full harbor.
The body meets its wife far out at sea.
Its lamp remains lit the whole moisty night.
Water pours down, faint flute notes in the sound of the water.
.
~ Robert Bly
-
CONVERSATION WITH THE SOUL
.The soul said, “Give me something to look at.”
So I gave her a farm. She said,
“It’s too large.” So I gave her a field.
The two of us sat down.Sometimes I would fall in love with a lake
Or a pinecone. But I liked her
Most. She knew it.
“Keep writing,” she said.So I did. Each time the new snow fell,
We would be married again.
The holy dead sat down by our bed.
This went on for years.“This field is getting too small,” she said.
“Don’t you know anyone else
To fall in love with?”
What would you have said to Her?Robert Bly -
When I come near the red peony flower
I tremble as water does near thunder,
As the well does when the plates of earth move,
Or the tree when fifty birds leave at once.
The peony says that we have been given a gift,
And it is not the gift of this world.
Behind the leaves of the peony
There is a world still darker, that feeds many..
~ Robert Bly
-
Every breath taken in by the man
who loves, and the woman who loves,
goes to fill the water tank
where the spirit horses drink.
.
~ Robert Bly
-
When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?
Water that once could take no human weight-
We were students then- holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillnessRobert Bly
I discovered a truth that seemed to me a revelation... There seemed to be two universes which I termed the world and the earth, in either of which I could choose to live. Then I saw there was but one, and that I was living on the earth looking directly into infinity. ~ Harlan Hubbard
