by Robert Bly
Nor why I keep saying blessings on their heads.
It’s all right if I forget my own brother,
And pretend I was born before my father,
And erase so many lines I wrote yesterday.
I don’t know why I love to sleep under a sheepskin,
Nor why my blanket seems my oldest friend.
And why I am afraid to sleep on the open ground.
Don’t ask why the elephants wear such large shoes,
And why the kangaroos are reborn kidnappers,
And why the sailing birds are all Romantics.
We know the salmon follow each other upstream,
And the legislators hire their own nephews,
And the priests pay to get their sons into heaven.
ABOUT MY FATHER
The salty stars experience the ruin of the world.
My father was a nomad on the Mongol plains.
Each day he fed a thousand Astrakhan lambs.
He knew when the dangerous winter would come.
He knew a lot about calving in January,
And how to keep the new lambs from dying.
I couldn’t tell you about the calves lost at birth,
Nor the lambs who stood around on wobbly legs,
Nor the ewes who went on eating anyway.
He knew how to put small pins into those farm wagons
In danger of falling apart. He had the gift
Of trying to hold the world together.
I knew how often he had saved other farmers
When times were bad, and kept them from ruin.
He kept a hundred sorrows alive in him.
It’s hard to know what to say about Jacob.
I know that he was always fair to Esau.
If you see Jacob, tell him I am his son.
SMOKE-STAINED FINGERS
There is still time for the old days when the musician
Stayed inside his bubble of joy, and the old men
Threw cards down with their smoke-stained fingers.
Let’s hope Brooklyn Bridge will remain standing,
That Jacob marries either Rachel or Leah,
And the Appalachians don’t wear all the way down.
No one minds if we are scruffy and badly dressed.
The old man who is checking names at the door
Speaks only Hungarian, and is blind as well.
There’s no telling how many hours are left to us.
The plateaus in New Mexico lift a little each year.
It’s like hearing a dog barking from far away.
Some birdcalls come straight through the walls.
I don’t know why we bother to listen to them
When we’ve never heard our own cries.
Don’t give up, friends. Somewhere inside us,
Jacob is tending sheep on our old farm.
The angels are still sending messages to Joseph.
WHAT THE OLD POETS FAILED TO SAY
The sunlight on wheat-heads in August holds me firmly,
For I am in love with the wheat soon to be cut.
Let’s thank whoever it was who kept sorrow alive.
Tell me who brought Hafez out of the grave.
Who brings us news of the Thirtieth Kingdom?
I can’t stop clapping my hands over this question.
Even though we know God lays our head
On the block, we thank him for it all, and we
Remember the loving we have enjoyed at night.
Tell me why the suffering of the violin string
Goes on for years, why the coyote calls at night,
And why the bird never settles down on one branch.
Tell me why my titles are often so sad,
And why cattle keep on going every day
To the slaughterhouse, and why wars go on so long.
Night after night goes by in the old man’s head.
We try to ask new questions. But whatever
The old poets failed to say will never be said.
INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
A black iron fence closes the graves in, its ovals delicate as wine, 209
A blind horse stands among cherry trees, 65
About four, a few flakes, 71
About My Father, 503
Accountants hover over the earth like helicopters, 38
A cold night; the sidewalk we walk on icy; the dark surrounds, 153
Adam agreed the ocean would be the home of salt, 456
Adam’s Understanding, 456
“A drowsy numbness pains my sense.” Keats heard, 375
Advice from the Geese, 428
A friend of mine says that every war, 482
After A Day of Work, 186
After a drifting day, visiting the bridge near Louisburg, 15
After A Friend’s Death, 352
After a long walk I come down to the shore, 192
After a long walk in the woods clear cut for lumber, 227
After a month and a half without rain, at last, in late August, 151
After Drinking All Night with a Friend, We Go Out in a Boat at Dawn to See Who Can Write the Best Poem, 27
After Long Busyness, 112
After many strange thoughts, 24
Afternoon Sleep, 21
After so many years, I come walking to you, 260
After the Industrial Revolution, All Things Happen at Once, 48
After three days of talk, I long for silence and come here, 216
After walking about all afternoon, 116
After we had loved each other intently, 259
After Working, 24
A hundred boats are still looking for shore, 472
A light seen suddenly in the storm, snow, 55
A little snow. Coffee. The bowled-over branches, 340
All day I loved you in a fever, holding on to the tail of the horse, 244
All day wind had called me, 174
All right. I know that each of us will die alone, 465
All These Stories, 319
Alone a Few Hours, 250
A lonely man once sat on a large flat stone, 327
Alone on the jagged rock at the south end of McClure’s Beach, 137
Already autumn begins here in the mossy rocks, 107
A man and a woman sit, 257
A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do not long, 240
A man bends over the gunwales, 303
A man I knew could never say who he was, 331
A man told me once that all the bad people, 314
Andrei Voznesensky has a curious look like a wood animal, one, 130
Andrew Jackson’s Speech, 46
Anger against Children, 293
Another Doing Nothing Poem, 114
An owl on the dark waters, 64
Ant Heaps by the Path, 184
Approaching Winter, 8
A private, misty day, 183
Aramage for the Mountain, 489
A ranger is lifting fingerling trout from a pickup with his scoop, 123
Artist, The, 184
Artist at Fifty, The, 252
A sadness comes when we think back, 334
A Saturday night. The area is cold, deserted. In a water tank set, 132
Asian Peace Offers Rejected without Publication, 49
As I drive my parents home through the snow, 185
A silence hovers over the earth, 20
A sort of roll develops out of the bay, and lays itself all down this, 141
“As soon as the master is untied, the bird soars,” 488
As the Asian War Begins, 51
A stone barn. The ground around is green, springy, rolling over, 128
A strange unrest hovers over the nation, 11
As we walk out at dawn we can still see the remains of the path, 149
At a F
ish Hatchery in Story, Wyoming, 123
At a March against the Vietnam War, 51
At Midocean, 244
At night desire and longing enter, and we feel water, 260
At the Funeral of Great-Aunt Mary, 16
At the start of the dream, 285
Augustine on His Ship, 405
August Rain, 151
Autumn rain and sudden winds, 113
Awakening, 12
A word I love comes—snow; then fencepost, 363
Baal Shem and Francis Bacon, The, 399
Bach’s B Minor Mass, 422
Bad People, 314
Barn at Elabuga, The, 316
Battle at Ypres, 1915, The, 395
Bear and the Man, The, 325
Bear’s Tail, The, 217
Because it is the first Sunday of pheasant season, men gather, 7
Behind the Church in the Isleta Pueblo, here is a courtyard, 133
Being born amounts to peering out from a cliff, 449
Being Happy All Night, 341
Big-Nostrilled Moose, The, 486
Bird’s Nest Made of White Reed Fiber, A, 121
Black Crab Demon, The, 135
Black Figure below the Boat, The, 332
Black trunks, black branches, and white snow, 360
Blessings now on all, 492
Blinding of Samson, The, 429
Blind Old Man, The, 469
Blind Tobit, The, 423
Bored Elephants in the Circus Stable, 132
Bouquet of Ten Roses, A, 208
Box of Chocolates, The, 482
Brahms, 435
Bridegroom, The, 454
Buff-Chested Grouse, The, 458
Busy Man Speaks, The, 36
Cabbages of Chekhov, The, 400
Calderón, 384
Call and Answer, 427
Calling to the Badger, 79
Calling Your Father, 330
Calm Morning at Drake’s Bay, 141
Camels, The, 490
Cardinal’s Cry, The, 403
Caterpillar, A, 150
Childhood is like a kitchen. It is dangerous, 313
Chinese Peaks, The, 270
Chinese Tomb Guardians, 72
Christmas Eve Service at Midnight at St. Michael’s, 153
Christmas is a place, like Jackson Hole. We all agree, 362
Christmas Poem, A, 362
Chrysanthemums, 111
Chrysanthemums crying out on the borders of death, 38
Clear Air of October, The, 24
Climbing Up Mount Vision with My Little Boy, 139
Clothespins, 350
Come, let us write of Niagara and the Huron squaws, 79
Come with Me (Come with me into those things that have felt this despair for so long—), 40
Come with Me (We walk together in willows, among willows), 244
Come with me into those things that have felt this despair for so long—, 40
Coming in for Supper, 163
Coming nearer and nearer the resonating chamber, 116
Condition of the Working Classes: 1970, 77
Conditions, The, 253
Conversation, 256
Conversation, A, 75
Conversation brings us so close! Opening, 61
Conversation with a Holy Woman Not Seen for Many Years, 260
Conversation with a Monster, 331
Conversation with a Mouse, A, 367
Conversation with the Soul, 312
Convict and His Radio, The, 202
Cornpicker Poem, 177
Counting Small-Boned Bodies, 50
Country Roads, The, 390
Courting Forgetfulness, 464
Crazy Carlson cleared this meadow alone, 229
Crazy Carlson’s Meadow, 229
Creek by the Luan House, The, 113
Creeley sits on a chair, pulling up his knees to laugh, like a boy, 124
Crow’s Head, The, 190
Cry Going Out over Pastures, The, 169
Current Administration, The, 45
Dark Autumn Nights, The, 417
Dark Egg, The, 303
Darkness is falling through darkness, 63
Dawn, 412
Dawn in Threshing Time, 175
Day Alone, A, 157
Day in Late June, A, 472
Day the Dock Comes In, The, 483
Dead of Shiloh, The, 375
Dead Seal near McClure’s Beach, The, 143
Dealing with Parents, 473
Dear old Thoreau abandoned his scandalous life, 486
Death throws a shadow on us, as if it were a tree, 112
December’s foolishness, embers fall, tempters, 487
Dentists continue to water their lawns even in the rain, 43
Depression, 18
Difficult Word, The, 407
Digging Worms, 179
Dingy Playing Cards, The, 450
Dog’s Ears, The, 340
Doing Nothing Poem, A, 116
Don’t be afraid, 491
Don’t tell me that nothing can be done, 343
Don’t you see them? They are coming to blind Samson!, 429
Do you laugh or cry when you hear the poet sing?, 376
Do you remember the night Abraham first saw, 371
Dream of an Afternoon with a Woman I Did Not Know, 193
Dream of Myself at Twelve, 285
Dream of Retarded Children, A, 191
Dream of Suffocation, A, 38
Dream of the Blacksmith’s Room, A, 290
Dream of What Is Missing, A, 160
Dream on the Night of First Snow, A, 181
Dried Sturgeon, The, 208
Driving My Parents Home at Christmas, 185
Driving through Minnesota During the Hanoi Bombings, 53
Driving through Ohio, 16
Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter, 19
Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River, 9
Drops of rain fall into black fields, 242
Each day I live, each day the sea of light, 13
Each fall it rains a lot in the northern woods, 356
Each mole and shoat is a shadow thrown by the sun, 384
Each time the soprano and the tenor, 477
Each time we lower a violin near the Nile River, 405
Early in the morning the hermit wakes, hearing, 495
Early Morning in Your Room, 309
Eating Blackberry Jam, 457
Eel in the Cave, The, 401
Eight hundred feet up, there is water pouring out of the sky! It, 132
Eleven O’clock at Night, 205
Empty Place, An, 187
Empty places are white and light-footed. “Taking the road” means, 187
Eudalia and Plato, 380
Evening When the Full Moon Rose as the Sun Set, An, 194
Every breath taken in by the man, 252
Every leaf in a storm points in the same direction, 444
Evolution from the Fish, 65
Excursion on Tomales Bay, An, 140
Executive’s Death, The, 35
Extra Joyful Chorus for Those Who Have Read This Far, 101
Face in the Toyota, The, 350
Fall, 7
Family Photograph, Sunday Morning, A, 323
Family Thing, A, 481
Farm in Western Minnesota, A, 323
Father and Son, 470
Fat Old Couple Whirling Around, The, 451
Fear for the Bridal Pair, 183
Ferns, 247
Fifty Men Sitting Together, 227
Finally in the bear’s cabin I come to earth, 242
Finding an Old Ant Mansion, 210
Finding a Salamander on Inverness Ridge, 141
Finding Sharks’ Teeth in a Rock, 241
Finding the Father, 158
Fire of Despair Has Been Our Saviour, The, 59
Firmness, 256
First snow yesterday, and now more falling, 185
Fishing on a Lake at Night, 188
Fish in the Window, The, 393
Five Inns, The, 398
Flamenco Singers in Granada, 432
Floating in turtle blood, going backward and forward, 63
For a Childhood Friend, Marie, 324
Forgive the hours spent listening to radios, and the words of, 122
Forgiving the Mailman, 385
For My Brother, a Year after His Death, 182
For My Son Noah, Ten Years Old, 200
For Robert Motherwell, 441
For Ruth, 367
For the Old Gnostics, 488
Four Ways of Knowledge, 224
French Generals, The, 394
Friend, this body is made of camphor and gopherwood. So for, 166
Friends, it’s time to give up our hope for Rapture, 450
Friends, there is only one joy and hundreds of sorrows, 382
Frogs after Dark, The, 468
Frost is glittery, excited, like so many things laid down silently, 129
Frost on the Windowpane, 129
Frost Still on the Ground, 190
Furry demons come to the door offering separations, 373
Furry shadows are bringing gifts to our door, 392
Galloping Horses, 160
Getting Up Early, 19
Giordano Bruno and the Muddy Footprint, 373
Glimpse of Something in the Oven, The, 313
God crouches at night over a single pistachio, 439
God does what she wants. She has very large, 335
Going in a Helicopter from Riverside to the L.A. Airport, 146
Going Out to Check the Ewes, 159
Good Silence, The, 261
Grackles, The, 487
Grackles stroll about on the black floor of sorrow, 487
Grandparent and the Granddaughter, The, 355
Grass from Two Years, 152
Grass high under apple trees, 182
Gratitude to Old Teachers, 274
Great Society, The, 43
Greek Ships, The, 423
Green Cook Stove, The, 327
Grief of Men, The, 213
Growing Wings, 426
Hannibal and Robespierre, 381
Hatred of Men with Black Hair, 52
Have we forgotten the nest in which we were born?, 430
Have you heard about the boy who walked by, 312
Have you noticed the horses galloping past us?, 433
