By Robert Bly
1.
Who is out there at 6 A.M.? The man
Throwing newspapers onto the porch,
And the roaming souls suddenly
Drawn down into their sleeping bodies.
2.
Wild words of Jacob Boehme
Go on praising the human body,
But heavy words of the ascetics
Sway in the fall gales.
3.
Do I have a right to my poems?
To my jokes? To my loves?
Oh foolish man, knowing nothing—
Less than nothing—about desire.
4.
I have daughters and I have sons.
When one of them lays a hand
On my shoulder, shining fish
Turn suddenly in the deep sea.
5.
At this age, I especially love dawn
On the sea, stars above the trees,
Pages in "The Threefold Life,"
And the pale faces of baby mice.
6.
Perhaps our life is made of struts
And paper, like those early
Wright Brothers planes. Neighbors
Run along holding the wingtips.
7.
I've always loved Yeats's fierceness
As he jumped into a poem,
And that lovely calm in my father's
Hands as he buttoned his coat.
--------
From this week's New Yorker. I have no use for Iron John but Leaping Poetry: An Idea with Poems and Translations is worth a look.
It was a low-key Monday around here. My blood pressure has been wonky ever since I started taking prednisone for the fortunately-now-gone rash on my neck, so I spent all morning lying low waiting for the doctor to call and tell me if she wanted me to come in (she doesn't, but she wants me monitored three times a day for the rest of the week). We have only one vehicle at the moment since Paul's is still in for repairs, so he worked from home and we went out to the library and the food store while the kids were at school. When they got home, Adam had two friends over, one of whom obtained a unicycle over the weekend, so there was much hilarity as son used his new camera to film the friend and made this video of some unicycle antics. I am just glad he'd rather document than try to ride the thing!
I washed three loads of laundry, haven't folded yet, had a little tiny bit of homemade Cajun macaroni and cheese for dinner that Paul made without telling me in advance that it's 870 calories a serving (120% of daily recommended saturated fat -- I can eat half a can of nuts and feel better about it), rearranged a bunch of stuff in my bedroom because I got an urge to be able to see my Krystonia dragons, turned on my lava lamp while I was moving stuff around and chilled out. I didn't sleep well because of the wonky blood pressure and now I can't remember anything I intended to say, so I think I will go collapse and hope to be more interesting tomorrow. Here are some more photos from Winterthur's gardens:
No comments:
Post a Comment