Collected Poems

by Robert Bly

  Hawk, The, 262

  Hawk in His Nest, The, 502

  Hawthorne and the Elephant, 311

  Hawthorne’s walking stick—very short—lay, 311

  Head of Barley, The, 455

  He always knew where he had been, and he remembered, 482

  Heard Whispers, 485

  Hearing Men Shout at Night on MacDougal Street, 45

  Hearing Music at Dawn, 501

  He came in and sat by my side, and I did not wake up. I went on, 158

  Herbs, turtle-faced porcupine babies, 217

  Here I am, digging worms behind the chickenhouse, 179

  Here Morgan dies like a dog among whispers of angels, 45

  Here we are, all dressed up to honor death!, 16

  Hermit, The (Darkness is falling through darkness), 63

  Hermit, The (Early in the morning the hermit wakes, hearing), 495

  Heron Drinking, The, 261

  He Wanted to Live His Life Over, 313

  Hiding in a Drop of Water, 441

  Hill of Hua-Tzu, The, 111

  Hills of cloud, mountains of mist below, 117

  History of Mourning, A, 448

  Hockey Poem, The, 125

  Hollow Tree, A, 124

  Home in Dark Grass, A, 57

  Honoring Sand, 274

  Horse of Desire, The, 258

  Horses Coming Up Behind, The, 433

  Horses go on eating the Apostle Island ferns (Men and Women), 267

  Horses go on eating the Apostle Island ferns (The Big-Nostrilled Moose), 486

  Housefly, The, 492

  How David Did Not Care, 301

  How Jonah Did Not Care, 302

  How lightly the legs walk over the snow-whitened fields!, 186

  How Mirabai Did Not Care, 304

  How much I long for the night to come, 268

  How much I love you. The night is moist, 243

  How often I have, 300

  How shiny the turtle is, coming out (The Turtle), 72

  How shiny the turtle is, coming out (Thinking of “The Autumn Fields”), 107

  How strange to awake in a city, 45

  How strange to think of giving up all ambition!, 23

  How the Ant Takes Part, 165

  How the Saint Did Not Care, 302

  How This Wealth Came to Be, 409

  Hummingbird Valley, The, 247

  Hunter, give me my horse. I am going into sorrow again, 441

  Hunting Pheasants in a Cornfield, 5

  Hurry, for the horses are galloping along the road, 427

  Hurry! The world is not going to get better!, 428

  Hurrying Away from the Earth, 62

  I am comforted, 109

  I am driving; it is dusk; Minnesota, 9

  I am so much in love with mournful music, 468

  I am the grandchild of Norwegian forgetters, 424

  I am up early. The box-elder leaves have fallen, 19

  “I am who I am.” I wonder what one has to pay, 315

  I bend over an old hollow cottonwood stump, still standing, 124

  I cannot stop weeping over the thousand nights, 438

  I can remember the early mornings—how the stubble, 321

  I can’t stop praising Shabistari for bringing, 453

  I climb down the bank at Rock Island, Illinois, and cross some, 208

  I’d like to have spent my life making, 350

  I don’t even know these roads I walk on, 74

  I don’t know if we love most the divine, 189

  I don’t know if you’ve ever met a head of barley, 455

  I don’t know what would bring me closer to you., 440

  I don’t know why air drops gather on the inside, 498

  I don’t know why my mournful room is like heaven, 502

  I don’t know why so much sweetness hovers around us, 469

  I dreamt all night such glad painful exultant dreams. Each, 160

  I dreamt last night you, 290

  I felt my heart beat like an engine high in the air, 18

  If I think of a horse wandering about sleeplessly, 26

  If we are truly free, and live in a free country, 56

  If we could only not be eaten by the steep teeth, 77

  I get up late and ask what has to be done today, 179

  I go to the door often, 235

  I guess it’s an old family, 481

  I have been talking into the ear of a donkey, 480

  I have been thinking about the man who gives in, 328

  I Have Daughters and I Have Sons, 478

  I have spent my whole life doing what I love, 458

  I hear a ticking on the Pacific stones. A white shape is moving, 123

  I heard Andrew Jackson say, as he closed his Virgil, 46

  I hear rustlings from the next room; and he is ready, 341

  I hear voices praising Tshombe, and the Portuguese, 52

  I kneel down to peer into a culvert, 231

  I know the horses keep galloping for miles, 442

  I lie alone in my bed; cooking and stories are over at last, and, 205

  I’ll just stay here. You go on. Leave me behind, 436

  I look down the mountainside. Just below my window, 74

  I look out at the white sleet covering the still streets, 47

  I loved him so much. I’ve said, 492

  I love the mountain peak, 270

  I love to come near the hummingbird valley, 247

  I love to see boards lying on the ground in early spring, 28

  I love to stare at old wooden doors after working, 184

  I love you so much with this curiously alive and lonely body. My, 169

  I’m afraid to talk to you about my little toe, 386

  Images Suggested by Medieval Music, 22

  Imagination is the door to the raven’s house, so we are, 417

  I’m glad that a white horse grazes in that meadow, 353

  I missed the hour of your death., 287

  In a Mountain Cabin in Norway, 74

  In a Time of Losses, 487

  In a Train, 23

  In Danger from the Outer World, 59

  Indigo Bunting, The, 235

  I never intended to have this life, believe me—, 320

  I never understood that abundance leads to war, 410

  In half-light, I make out a shape near a tree trunk—a half-, 146

  In his cabin with darkened windows the solitary man, 184

  In late September many voices, 310

  In Praise of Scholars, 392

  In Rainy September, 240

  In rainy September, when leaves grow down into the dark, 240

  Inside the body there is a field of white roses, 178

  Inside the veins there are navies setting forth, 4

  Inside us there is a river born in the good cold, 243

  In the Ashby reeds it is already night, 184

  In the city, whenever you walk out, 475

  In the Courtyard of the Isleta Mission, 133

  In the deep fall the body awakes, 57

  In the fourth grade he sat on his school bench, 346

  In the Funeral Home, 287

  In the Month of May, 264

  In the month of May when all leaves, 264

  In the old days the serious man was not an “important person,” 110

  In the Time of Peony Blossoming, 244

  I open my journal, write a few, 218

  Isaac Bashevis and Pasternak, 361

  I sat beneath maples, reading, 256

  I say it is all right. The earth has hair cathedrals, 76

  I say the clumps of hair sweep, 75

  Iseult and the Badger, 391

  I sit alone late at night, 101

  I sit in a cliff hollow, surrounded by fossils and furry shells. The, 122

  I sit on the forest road, 109

  I start out for a walk at last after weeks at the desk, 112

  I still think about the shepherds, how many stars, 352

 
It has been snowing all day. Three of us start out across the, 161

  It is a clearing deep in a forest: overhanging boughs, 36

  It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted, 19

  It is a moonlit, windy night, 4

  It is a pale tree, 181

  It is a Pilgrim village; heavy rain is falling, 80

  It is a tide pool, shallow, water coming in, clear, tiny white, shell-124

  It is early morning, and death has forgotten us for, 441

  It is late December. I walk through the pasture, 194

  It is lovely to follow paths in the snow made by human feet. The,163

  It is low tide. Fog. I have climbed down the cliffs from Pierce, 144

  It is not only the ant that walks on the carpenter’s board alone, 236

  It is not yet dawn, and the sitar is playing., 418

  It Is So Easy to Give In, 328

  It is such a joy to hear Rameau’s music when the night, 446

  It is sweet to hear music when the night, 501

  It must be summer. Push the dock out, 352

  It must be that my early friendship with defeat, 435

  It must have been Saturn and the other old men, 454

  It’s all right if Cézanne goes on painting the same picture, 426

  It’s all right if this suffering goes on for years, 502

  It’s a parcel of some sort. The exchange, 353

  It’s as if someone else is here with me, here in this room, 336

  It’s as If Someone Else Is with Me, 336

  It’s as if the mice stayed warm inside the snow, 341

  It’s because the storytellers have been so faithful, 408

  It’s enough for light to fall on one half of a face, 387

  It’s good to have poems, 333

  It’s hard to know how all this wealth came to the world, 409

  It’s hard to know what sort of rough music, 464

  It’s hard to know what to say about parents, 473

  It’s late fall, and the box-elder leaves are gone, 482

  It’s morning. The brown scoops of coffee, the wasplike, 309

  It’s morning; there’s lamplight, and the room is still, 344

  It’s Morning Again, 493

  It’s morning again. Last night I spent hours, 493

  It’s odd that the shoehorn has been able to preserve, 437

  It’s something about envy. I won’t say I’m envious, 329

  Its sound is like a boat with black sails, 178

  It’s strange that our love of Beauty should lead us to hell, 376

  It started about noon. On top of Mount Batte, 349

  It was among ferns I learned about eternity, 247

  Ivar Oakeson’s Fiddle, 299

  I wake and find myself in the woods, far from the castle (Meeting the Man Who Warns Me), 92

  I wake and find myself in the woods, far from the castle (Night Frogs), 245

  I walk below the over-bending birches, 237

  I walk on a gravel path through cut-over, 221

  I walk out in the fields; the frost is still on the ground, 190

  I walk over the fields made white with new snow and then open, 154

  I walk toward Tomales Point over soaked and lonely hills—a, 138

  I want to be a stream of water falling—, 44

  I want to be a white horse!, 44

  I want to be true to what I have heard. It was, 445

  I was born during the night sea-journey, 95

  I was descending from the mountains of sleep, 21

  I was glad to be in that boat, floating, 321

  I woke from a first-day-of-snow dream, 181

  I woke up and went out. Not yet dawn, 193

  Jacob and Rachel, 436

  Jerez at Easter, 372

  Johnson’s Cabinet Watched by Ants, 36

  July Morning, 187

  Jumping Out of Bed, 116

  Keeping Our Small Boat Afloat, 464

  Keeping Quiet, 482

  Kennedy’s Inauguration, 214

  Kneeling Down to Look into a Culvert, 231

  Large Starfish, The, 144

  Last night, full moon, 182

  Last night I dreamt my father called to us, 326

  Last night in my dream, I drank tea steeped, 390

  Last night in my dream I took some steps, 494

  Last night the first heavy frost, 173

  Last night we took off our wolf skins, and danced, 450

  Late at Night during a Visit of Friends, 29

  Late Moon, 191

  Late Spring Day in My Life, A, 20

  Laziness and Silence, 25

  Leonardo’s Secret, 121

  Let it be, let, 299

  Let’s celebrate another day lost to Eternity, 385

  Let’s count the bodies over again, 50

  Let’s just stay here weeping over old grain, 399

  Let’s tell the other story about Pitzeem and his horse, 390

  Let’s tell the sweet story about the day Nikos, 389

  Letter to Her, 237

  Letter to James Wright, 270

  Lifting my coffee cup, I notice a caterpillar crawling over my, 150

  Light is around the petals, and behind them, 60

  Like the New Moon I Will Live My Life, 108

  Listening, 411

  Listening to a Cricket in the Wainscoting, 178

  Listening to Old Music, 440

  Listening to President Kennedy Lie about the Cuban Invasion, 42

  Listening to Shahram Nazeri, 442

  Listening to the Köln Concert, 259

  Listening to the Sitar before Dawn, 418

  Loafing with Friends at Ojo Canliente, 419

  Lobsters Waiting to Be Eaten in a Restaurant Window, 132

  Longing, The, 498

  Longing for the Acrobat, 466

  Long-Leggéd Birds, The, 500

  Long Walk before the Snows Began, A, 180

  Looking at a Dead Wren in My Hand, 122

  Looking at a Dry Tumbleweed Brought In from the Snow, 130

  Looking at Aging Faces, 358

  Looking at Cloud Banks below the Plane Window, 117

  Looking at New-Fallen Snow from a Train, 58

  Looking at Some Flowers, 60

  Looking at the open page of the psalm book, 188

  Looking at the Stars, 352

  Looking into a Face, 61

  Looking into a Tide Pool, 124

  Losing the House in a Card Game, 447

  Lost Trapper, The, 477

  Love from Far Away, The, 378

  Love Poem, 20

  Love Poem in Twos and Threes, 248

  Lover’s Body as a Community of Protozoa, The, 162

  Lovers in the River, 490

  Magnolia Grove, The, 114

  Mailing Evidence to the Prosecutors, 444

  Man and a Woman and a Blackbird, A, 253

  Man at the Door, The, 494

  Man Who Didn’t Know What Was His, The, 333

  Man Who Walks toward Us, The, 269

  Man Writes to a Part of Himself, A, 18

  March Buds, The, 246

  Massive engines lift beautifully from the deck, 81

  Max Ernst and the Tortoise’s Beak, 63

  Meditations on the Insatiable Soul, 292

  Meeting the Man Who Warns Me, 92

  Melancholia, 55

  Men and Women, 267

  Men and women spend only a moment in Paradise (The Trap-Door), 381

  Men and women spend only a moment in Paradise (What Kept Horace Alive), 377

  Men bring the boat at night inside its slanted house by the shore, 249

  Merchants have multiplied more than the stars of heaven, 35

  Mineral pools remember a lot about history, 419

  Minnow Turning, The, 256

  Monet’s Haystacks, 376

  Montserrat, 394

  Moose, The, 251

  Morning by the Lake, 150

  Morning Pajamas, 483r />
  Moses’ Basket, 189

  Moses’ Cradle, 374

  Mountain Grass, 251

  Mourning Dove’s Call, The, 479

  Mourning Pablo Neruda, 203

  Mouse, The, 333

  Moving Books to a New Study, 185

  Moving Inward at Last, 64

  My dear James, do you know that nothing has happened, 270

  My Doubts on Going to Visit a New Friend, 353

  My Father at Forty, 492

  My Father’s Wedding, 222

  My fierceness when I hold you belongs, 256

  My friend, this body is food for the thousand dragons of the air, 159

  My friend, this body is made of camphor and gopherwood, 157

  My friend, this body is made of energy compacted and whirling, 167

  My Mother, 493

  My mother gave me body, 304

  My mother was afraid—oh not, 493

  My Mournful Room, 502

  My Three-Year-Old Daughter Brings Me a Gift, 129

  My Wife’s Painting, 221

  Nailing a Dock Together, 193

  Natchez Inns, 399

  Nearly winter. All day the sky gray. Earth heavy, 180

  Nest in Which We Were Born, The, 430

  Neurons Who Watch Birds, The, 348

  Newspapers rise high in the air over Maryland, 51

  Night, 26

  Night Abraham Called to the Stars, The, 371

  Night and day arrive and day after day goes by, 200

  Night Farmyard, 175

  Night Frogs, 245

  Night in December, A, 112

  Night Journey in the Cooking Pot, The, 95

  Night of First Snow, 189

  Night of first snow, 189

  Night the Cities Burned, The, 454

  Night Winds, 249

  Night winds sway the lilacs near the abandoned woodshed, 249

  Nikos and His Donkey, 389

  Nirmala’s Music, 467

  Noah’s ship does not sail with its elephants forever, 403

  Noah Watching the Rain, 410

  No one grumbles among the oyster clans, 480

  Not to the mother of solitude will I give myself, 36

  November, 359

  November Day at McClure’s Beach, 137

  Now do you understand the men who laugh all night in their sleep?, 99

  Now we enter a strange world, where the Hessian Christmas, 48

  Occasionally spreading their wings to the sun, pelicans, 431

  Ocean in Sects, 177

  Ocean light as we wake reminds us how dark, 364

  Ocean Rain and Music, 356

  Ocean Rising and Falling, The, 356

  October Frost, 173

  Octopus, An, 123

  Oh, on an early morning I think I shall live forever!, 9

  Oh Wallace Stevens, dear friend, 271

  Oh well, let’s go on eating the grains of eternity, 468