Robert Bly

No one grumbles among the oyster clans, And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer. Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want Heaven to be, and God to come, again. There is no end to our grumbling; we want Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven. But the heron standing on one leg in the bog Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.

Inside the veins there are navies setting forth, Tiny explosions at the waterlines, And seagulls weaving in the wind of the salty blood. It is the morning. The country has slept the whole winter. Window seats were covered with fur skins, the yard was full Of stiff dogs, and hands that clumsily held heavy books. Now we wake, and rise from bed, and eat breakfast! Shouts rise from the harbor of the blood, Mist, and masts rising, the knock of wooden tackle in the sunlight. Now we sing, and do tiny dances on the kitchen floor. Our whole body is like a harbor at dawn; We know that our master has left us for the day.

It started about noon.  On top of Mount Batte, We were all exclaiming.  Someone had a cardboard And a pin, and we all cried out when the sun Appeared in tiny form on the notebook cover. It was hard to believe.  The high school teacher We’d met called it a pinhole camera, People in the Renaissance loved to do that. And when the moon had passed partly through We saw on a rock underneath a fir tree, Dozens of crescents—made the same way— Thousands!  Even our straw hats produced A few as we moved them over the bare granite. We shared chocolate, and one man from Maine Told a joke.  Suns were everywhere—at our feet.

There is something men and women living in houses Don’t understand. The old alchemists standing Near their stoves hinted at it a thousand times. Ravens at night hide in an old woman’s shoe. A four-year-old speaks some ancient language. We have lived our own death a thousand times. Each sentence we speak to friends means the opposite As well. Each time we say, “I trust in God,” it means God has already abandoned us a thousand times. Mothers again and again have knelt in church In wartime asking God to protect their sons, And their prayers were refused a thousand times. The baby loon follows the mother’s sleek Body for months. By the end of summer, she Has dipped her head into Rainy Lake a thousand times. Robert, you’ve wasted so much of your life Sitting indoors to write poems. Would you Do that again? I would, a thousand times.

Your head is still restless, rolling east and west. That body in you insisting on living is the old hawk for whom the world darkens. If I am not with you when you die, that is just. It is all right. That part of you cleaned my bones more than once. But I will meet you in the young hawk whom I see inside both you and me; he will guide you to the Lord of Night, who will give you the tenderness you wanted here.

There is so much sweetness in children’s voices, And so much discontent at the end of day, And so much satisfaction when a train goes by. I don’t know why the rooster keeps crying, Nor why elephants keep raising their trunks, Nor why Hawthorne kept hearing trains at night. A handsome child is a gift from God, And a friend is a vein in the back of the hand, And a wound is an inheritance from the wind. Some say we are living at the end of time, But I believe a thousand pagan ministers Will arrive tomorrow to baptize the wind. There’s nothing we need to do about John. The Baptist Has been laying his hands on earth for so long That the well water is sweet for a hundred miles. It’s all right if we don’t know what the rooster Is saying in the middle of the night, nor why we feel So much satisfaction when a train goes by.

Dentists continue to water their lawns even in the rain: Hands developed with terrible labor by apes Hang from the sleeves of evangelists; There are murdered kings in the light-bulbs outside movie theaters: The coffins of the poor are hibernating in piles of new tires. The janitor sits troubled by the boiler, And the hotel keeper shuffles the cards of insanity. The President dreams of invading Cuba. Bushes are growing over the outdoor grills, Vines over the yachts and the leather seats. The city broods over ash cans and darkening mortar. On the far shore, at Coney Island, dark children Playing on the chilling beach: a sprig of black seaweed, Shells, a skyful of birds, While the mayor sits with his head in his hands.

The Fathers put their trust in the end of the world And they were wrong.   The Gnostics were right and not Right.   Dragons copulate with their knobby tails. Some somnolent wealth rises unconcerned, Over there!   In the world!   Ponderous stubborn Sorrow weighs down the flying Gospels. Some enormous obstacle blocks our way. The untempered soul grumbles in empty light.

The drum says that the night we die will be a long night. It says the children have time to play. Tell the grownups They can pull the curtains around the bed tonight. The old man wants to know how the war ended. The young girl wants her breasts to cause the sun to rise. The thinker wants to keep misunderstanding alive. It’s all right if the earthly monk is buried near the altar. It’s all right if the singer fails to turn up for her concert. It’s good if the fat old couple keeps whirling around. Let the parents sing over the cradle every night. Let the pelicans go on living in their stickly nests. Let the duck go on loving the mud around her feet. It’s all right if the ant always remembers his way home. It’s all right if Bach keeps reaching for the same note. It’s all right if we knock the ladder away from the house. Even if you are a puritan it would be all right If you join the lovers in their ruined house tonight. It’s good if you become a soul and then disappear.

Merchants have multiplied more than the stars of heaven. Half the population are like the long grasshoppers That sleep in the bushes in the cool of the day; The sound of their wings is heard at noon, muffled, near the earth. The crane handler dies; the taxi driver dies, slumped over In his taxi. Meanwhile high in the air an executive Walks on cool floors, and suddenly falls. Dying, he dreams he is lost in a snowbound mountain On which he crashed, carried at night by great machines. As he lies on the wintry slope, cut off and dying, A pine stump talks to him of Goethe and Jesus. Commuters arrive in Hartford at dusk like moles Or hares flying from a fire behind them, And the dusk in Hartford is full of their sighs. Their trains come through the air like a dark music, Like the sound of horns, the sound of thousands of small wings.