by Robert Bly
So sweet to hear music last night. There is so
Much joy in being afraid of the world together.
The snow in the branches, the sadness in your hands,
The foot tracks in the mud, the old Inca faces,
The trout who wait all year for the acorns to descend.
The sitar player is so much like the crow, who rises
Each morning in the sky above the black branches
And cries six cries with no memory of the light.
Every musician wants his fingers to play faster
So that he can go deeper into the kingdom of pain.
Each note on the string calls for one note more.
The hand that has written all these sounds down
Is like a bird who wakes in the middle of the night
And starts out toward its old nest on the mountain.
Robert, I don’t know why you would have such
Good luck these days. Those lines about the crows
Crying are better than a whole night of sleep.
A WEEK IN FLORENCE
The donkey has led us through so many cultures!
Virgin after virgin has been born! Fra Lippi’s voice
Is one ray of light coming down on the suffering.
Clams have survived so many long nights alone.
Why shouldn’t Giotto stand for hours in his workshop?
Go ahead; fast in the night, and weep at dawn.
The green Arno carries the green blood of insects.
Angry men in the Baptistry have stabbed each
Other long before Dante went away weeping.
Mary’s face shines so sweetly. Why? The hair
Of the paleolithic elephants falls only once over
Their girlish eyes; then they enter eternal darkness.
The young woman is studying and praying in a room
Open to the Tuscan air. But the wide wings
Of the angel do not fit all the way inside the house.
Robert, if you’ve seen even one brown donkey’s ear
That Giotto painted, that’s enough. You don’t need to gaze
Through the window at the fields planted for Jesus to see.
For Mary and Alessandro
RAMEAU’S MUSIC
It is such a joy to hear Rameau’s music when the night
Is just retreating from the oaky branches,
And the sun’s enemy is throwing down his gloves.
Last night I wept so long and deeply in my dream
Because the fish were not returning to that bend
In the river where I swam so often as a boy.
Seeing that Jacob and Esau were both standing
By their father’s bed, the old fisherman sent hooks down
And pulled the reckless boy up into the heavens.
Some music is as beautiful as snow on twigs.
I don’t really see much distinction between
Words and the bow being drawn over the cello.
Well, how shall we complain after that?
We’ve been warned that what we receive on earth
Is smoke, fire, wind, mud, and darkness.
It’s all right to balance on top of a pole! People
Say if you want the magic thing hidden from all
Others, you’ll have to have a life full of exultation!
LOSING THE HOUSE IN A CARD GAME
We have gambled, we’ve staked our house on a throw,
Lost a thousand times. Each time we finish the course,
We ride our horse back to the loser’s circle.
We will never get tired of longing for good things
For each other. We are each, as we make love,
Like the mother bringing her child to the door of the school.
We were only fourteen when I saw you in Geometry
Class. We gobbled ecstasy; but we knew so little
About the skirts of glory stirring up the night.
This lovers’ grief must be something the ancients
Worried about, because they knew that light
Of any kind can easily get lost in the dark clouds.
Oh Seth and Shem! Are you still grieving over
The seed of light that descended with no
Defender near into the Egypt of Mary’s womb?
It’s possible that we have nothing to mourn for,
Nothing to grieve over. We too, with every
Defeat, have gone a little farther into Egypt.
A HISTORY OF MOURNING
It’s odd that evening is so speckled with grief.
Birds start singing when the branch reddens.
But we write our poems when the sun goes down.
Our ancestors knew how to cry at death; but they
Had enough to do finding big stones to cover
The dead, and begetting new souls to replace them.
We slept on the limestone plains, and woke
Night after night, tracing the route the dead take
Through holes in limestone and on into the stars.
Some hands outlined with blown powder
On the walls of the cave have missing fingers.
We drew maps of the night sky in the dust.
How slowly it all went! One day a woman wept
When she saw a bone reddened with ochre.
A thousand years later, we put a bead in a grave.
Some graves stand among woods. We still don’t understand
Why a pine coffin is so beautiful. We don’t know.
We are still brooding over why the sun rises.
A WEEK ON THE OREGON COAST
Being born amounts to peering out from a cliff
Over the sea. The great jellyfish who spread their arms
Out on the sea tell us how deep our ignorance is.
The acts we take resemble ink soaking through a page.
Men and women we cannot see have written on the page
Just before us. It was death who folded over the page.
Why do we assume that we are responsible for
The pain of those near to us? The albatross that lands
On the mast began flying a thousand years ago.
We are floating in an open boat near the Bermudas
Watching drops of seawater fall off the oars.
Soon Melville’s ship will come by singing.
All those times we’ve been born, and died, including
Those times when we were never born at all,
Require Cassiopeia to sit upright in her chair.
Robert, you’ve become a watcher of the night sky—
You sit up half the night looking at Orion. Be glad
That so many jellyfish spread their arms on the sea.
SAND HEAPS
Last night we took off our wolf skins, and danced
For hours, stomping our feet on the old rug. We were
Sand heaps breaking up in someone else’s hands.
It was when we sang the same four bars over
And over that we gradually went mad
On one precious foot that was never put down.
We couldn’t tell for a while where the door was
Or where the corners were. We didn’t know if it was
Our crying or someone else’s that filled the room.
What good will all this dancing do for anyone?
Oh, it’s nothing; it will never do any good.
It’s as precious as a hundred hours of prayer.
We have no idea why our bodies are jumping
Up and down, nor why our throats are full of sound.
All our years of everything have come to nothing.
We couldn’t tell where the walls and floor were.
We lost all our coolness as we danced in the heat.
All our years of everything have come to this.
THE DINGY PLAYING CARDS
Friends, it’s time to give up our hope for Rapture.
Saucers will not carry us away. Raskolnikov
Had to depend on the police to help him sleep.
Our soul loves the dingy cards that have been dealt
To the ne’er-do-wells. The old men put the old
Queens down with their smoke-stained fingers.
In the Cirque du Soleil, when the acrobats
Sweep out over the crowd, babies are being
Born who know much more than we ever did.
The yellow teeth of old jackrabbits explains a lot
About the shortage of mercy; the caterpillar’s walk
Reminds us of the Mongols galloping toward Khorakhan.
After the funeral, once they are safe, the dead begin
To miss losing at cards. We know that Cain and Abel
Want to meet each other again on the plowed field.
Robert, there’s not a single humiliation we could
Have done without. We are still perched on a pole.
What will happen to us depends a lot on the wind.
THE FAT OLD COUPLE WHIRLING AROUND
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.
V
SHABISTARI AND THE SECRET GARDEN
I can’t stop praising Shabistari for bringing
The gnat’s and the elephant’s legs close to each other.
Next I want Sunday to be brought closer to Monday.
Suppose a bit of straw were able to marry the wind.
Haven’t you noticed those good marriages when
The wind and the chaff go down the road together?
When a poem takes me to that place where
No story ever happens twice, all I want
Is a warm room, and a thousand years of thought.
Conrad said the dark swimmer did reach his ship.
If we sink into the suffering that’s right for us,
Our dreams will have all that Adam and Eve wept for.
Amazing things do happen. One morning Kierkegaard
Explains exactly what ressentiment is
And the mouse agrees to marry everyone in the room.
Robert, those high spirits don’t prove you are
A close friend of truth; but you have learned to drive
Your buggy over the prairies of human sorrow.
THE NIGHT THE CITIES BURNED
It must have been Saturn and the other old men
Who arranged this night of darkness for us.
So much of our life goes by in the murky dark.
When you open an apple in order to take in
Its sweet fruit, be sure to eat the tiny black seeds
So you can taste the tartness that Swift knew.
I’m never tired of despair and desperation,
And I won’t be quiet. I keep crying out that the house
Is being robbed. I want even the thieves to know.
We’ll have to help each other to hear, because
It was in the middle of the night during a storm
That Sophocles and all the weepers were born.
We’ve tried to go straight for a hundred years
With the help of reason. Friends, we are tufted
Nuthatches blown for miles in the dawn wind.
I don’t know why these poems keep veering off
Toward darkness. Robert, you are actually a daughter
Of Lot, fleeing from the ruins of the Enlightenment.
For Michael Ventura
THE BRIDEGROOM
The bridegroom wanted to reach the Norwegian Church.
But the roads were made impassable by huge snows.
We are each the Bridegroom longing for existence.
Marriage brings the moth close to the candleflame.
With their frail wings, men and women
Are constantly flying into the fire of existence.
Some say that each drop of groundwater in Kansas
Knows about the ocean. How can this be?
Every drop of water longs like us for existence.
Abu Said fasted in the desert for twenty years.
Later when he came back, his dragon friend
Wept. “Your suffering gave me a hint of existence.”
When the pianist’s fingers strike all the notes
In the Tenth Prelude, it’s clear Bach’s soul has been
Leaping about like a hare in the field of existence.
Robert, you’re close to joy but not quite there.
You are a hunchback standing in an Italian
Square, looking in at the festival of existence.
THE HEAD OF BARLEY
I don’t know if you’ve ever met a head of barley
In late August, protected by its spiky beards.
It sticks to your clothes from pure faithfulness.
When a farm girl picks up a Leghorn feather
And waves it in an empty barn, the storm it
Raises is as subtle as the wind of faithfulness.
The last maple leaf hanging on its tree against
The blue sky is like that angel who brought
His wing-tips in near Mary’s faithfulness.
The sitar player keeps track of twelve notes
For each raga, five up and seven down. Even
With twelve brides, he maintains faithfulness.
You know a needle sticks up for itself; it’s
Not a generous thing, but, joining with the hand,
It starts out on the road to faithfulness.
It’s hard to know what to say about the marvels
Inside the soul. Even those of us who have broken
Many promises can still hope for faithfulness.
ADAM’S UNDERSTANDING
Adam agreed the ocean would be the home of salt.
We all understood our souls would hang by a thread.
God agreed the pearl would be out of our hands.
What did the Prodigal Son find inside his room?
His boots and sword, a tiny monkey chained
To an iron ball, a bed, and forgetfulness.
I have written poems lying in so many small beds.
Sometimes a cross hangs on the inside of the door.
Mostly the dark of early dawn is in the room.
Some say farmers have taken on themselves the crime
Of saving and sowing wheat; and bakers have taken
On themselves the crime of baking the bread!
This is what I say, “I want what’s owed to me.”
A voice says, “We have our inheritance.”
Whose voice is that? Is that my old teacher?
Oh what a glory it is that the winter snow
Should be so deep, that we know so little,
And the future should be out of our hands!
EATING BLACKBERRY JAM
When I hear that we all belong to nonexistence,
I drop my eyes, but then I raise them out
Of love f
or the little creatures of nonexistence.
Some say that perch became like each other
To keep the shark from zeroing in. But staying alive
Doesn’t mean they are free from nonexistence.
The cries of the infant barn-swallows rising from
The mud-nests fastened ingeniously to the rafters
Taught me to love the skinny birds of nonexistence.
Taoists with their thin beards fishing all day
With a straight hook tell us they have learned
Not to expect a whole lot from nonexistence.
