Book Read Free

Collected Poems

Page 39

by Robert Bly


  Oh yes, I love you, book of my confessions, 72

  Old Boards, 28

  Old Fishing Lines, The, 475

  Old literary privacies are in danger, 361

  Old Man with Missing Fingers, The, 160

  Old St. Peter by Rembrandt, The, 403

  Old Woman Frying Perch, The, 312

  On a Moonlit Road in the North Woods, 109

  On a Saturday afternoon in the football season, 25

  Once I loved you only a few minutes a day, 256

  Once more in Brooklyn Heights, 22

  Once more the murky world is becoming confused. Oh, 372

  One day a mouse called to me from his curly nest, 367

  One man I know keeps saying that we don’t need, 347

  One Source of Bad Information, 354

  On the Ferry across Chesapeake Bay, 17

  On the orchard of the sea, far out are whitecaps, 17

  On the Oregon Coast, 272

  On this windy December night two children lost their way, 112

  Opening an Oyster, 66

  Opening the Door of a Barn I Thought Was Empty on New Year’s Eve, 154

  Orchard Keeper, The, 167

  Orion, that old hunter, floats among the stars, 488

  Orion And the Farmstead, 488

  Our veins are open to shadow, and our fingertips, 401

  “Out of The Rolling Ocean, The Crowd . . . ,” 236

  Out Picking Up Corn, 194

  Oval, 173

  Owlets at Nightfall, The, 159

  Parcel, The, 353

  Passing a Spanish Orchard by Train, 182

  Paying Attention to the Melody, 465

  Pelicans at White Horse Key, The, 431

  Peony blossoms open in starlight. The lovers, 490

  People are moving big milk cans around in, 383

  People Like Us, 361

  Perhaps the turtle loves his sturdy back too much, 408

  Pheasant Chicks, The, 488

  Pilgrim Fish Heads, 80

  Pistachio Nut, The, 439

  Pitzeem and the Mare, 390

  Playful Deeds of the Wind, The, 328

  Please tell me why the lamb is in love with the wolf, 372

  Poem, The, 116

  Poem about Tennessee, A, 134

  Poem against the British, 13

  Poem against the Rich, 13

  Poem for Andrew Marvell, A, 418

  Poem for Giambattista Vico Written by the Pacific, A, 365

  Poem in Three Parts, 9

  Poem Is Some Remembering, A, 344

  Poem on Sleep, 252

  Poetry is an occupation fit for slaughterers, 396

  Poetry Reading at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, A, 495

  Poetry Reading in Maryland, A, 476

  Porcupine in the Wind, The, 146

  Prayer Service in an English Church, 188

  Prince Philip becomes irritable, the royal sports car, 76

  Prodigal Son, The, 200

  Prophets, 178

  Pulling a Rowboat Up among Lake Reeds, 184

  Question in the Los Gatos Hills, 300

  Question the Bundle Had, A, 349

  Raft of Green Logs, The, 396

  Rain falls on mountain grass; we remain close all day, 251

  Rain falls on the shore bushes and the pawky sea, 356

  Rains, 472

  Ram, The, 249

  Rameau’s Music, 446

  Ravens Hiding in a Shoe, 463

  Reading an Anglo-Saxon love poem in its extravagance, 261

  Reading in a Boat, 321

  Reading in Fall Rain, 176

  Reading Silence in the Snowy Fields, 363

  Ready to Sleep, 491

  Rembrandt’s Brown Ink, 431

  Rembrandt’s Etchings, 402

  Rembrandt’s Portrait of Titus with a Red Hat, 387

  Remembering in Oslo the Old Picture of the Magna Carta, 14

  Rendezvous at an Abandoned Farm, 149

  Resemblance between Your Life and a Dog, The, 320

  Rethinking Wallace Stevens, 345

  Returning Poem, 249

  Return to Solitude, 4

  Riderless Horses, 64

  Rock Islet on the Pacific, A, 135

  Romans Angry about the Inner World, 39

  Roof Nail, The, 472

  Roots, The, 242

  Russian, The, 316

  Sacrifice in the Orchard, A, 220

  Samson, grinding bread for widows and orphans, 305

  Sand Heaps, 450

  Scandal, The, 351

  Seawater Pouring Back over Stones, 142

  Secrets, 237

  Seeing Creeley for the First Time, 124

  Seeing the Eclipse in Maine, 349

  Seeing You Carry Plants In, 243

  Sense of Decline, The, 201

  Sense of Getting Older, The, 474

  September. Clouds. The first day for wearing jackets, 8

  September Night with an Old Horse, 26

  Seven Stars of the Great Bear, The, 192

  Shabistari and The Secret Garden, 453

  Shack Poem, 74

  Shadow Goes Away, The, 89

  Shame, 257

  She comes and lays him carefully in my hand—a caterpillar! A, 129

  Sheds left out in the darkness, 177

  She knew a lot about life on a farm: wagon, 324

  Shocks We Put Our Pitchforks Into, The, 310

  Shoehorn, The, 437

  Silence, 29

  Silent in the Moonlight, 489

  Silent in the moonlight, no beginning or end, 489

  Singing the Same Throaty Note, 438

  Sister de Chantal hands, 214

  Sitting in Fall Grass, 174

  Sitting on Some Rocks in Shaw Cove, 122

  Six Winter Privacy Poems, 71

  Sleeper, The, 158

  Sleeping Faces, 113

  Sleet Storm on the Merritt Parkway, 47

  Slim Fir Seeds, The, 485

  Smoke rises from mountain depths, a girl walks by the water, 165

  Smoke-Stained Fingers, 504

  Smothered by the World, 38

  Snowbanks North of the House, 199

  Snowed In Again, 168

  Snowfall in the Afternoon, 30

  Snow has been falling for three days. The horses stay in the, 168

  Snow has covered the next line of tracks, 58

  Snow has fallen on snow for two days behind the Keilen farmhouse, 167

  So Be It. Amen., 412

  Solitude Late at Night in the Woods, 22

  So many blessings have been given to us, 464

  So many camels kneel to take their burdens on, 490

  So many things happen, 224

  Some aggravations include the whole world, 359

  Somebody showed off and tried to tell the truth, 364

  Some days we are passive, listening to the incoming waves, 499

  Some gamblers abandon carefully built houses, 400

  Some Images for Death, 112

  Some intensity of the body came to me at five in the morning, 186

  Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn, 412

  Some Men Find It Hard to Finish Sentences, 318

  Some November Privacy Poems, 109

  Someone comes near, the jaw, 43

  Someone has left a light on at the boathouse, 188

  Some people say that every poem should have, 345

  Something to Do for Aunt Clara, 494

  Sometimes, riding in a car, in Wisconsin, 3

  Sometimes a man can’t say, 318

  Sometimes a poem has her own husband, 486

  Sometimes I get in my car on a late October day, 475

  Sometimes there’s the wind. Sometimes the wind, 328

  So much happens when the dock comes in, 483

  So Much Time, 487

  Sounds are heard too high for ears, 37

  St. George, The Dragon, and the Virgin, 297

  St. George fights the dra
gon, 297

  Standing under a Cherry Tree at Night, 131

  Starting a Poem, 477

  Stealing Sugar from the Castle, 459

  Storm, The, 334

  Storyteller’s Way, The, 408

  Such Different Wants, 246

  Suddenly Turning Away, 43

  Summer, 1960, Minnesota, 15

  Sunday Afternoon, 491

  Sunset at a Lake, 7

  Suppertime. I leave my cabin and start toward the house. Something,190

  Suppose there were a bear and a man. The bear, 325

  Suppose you see a face in a Toyota, 350

  Surprised by Evening, 6

  Sympathies of the Long-Married, The, 468

  “Taking the Hands,” 20

  Taking the hands of someone you love, 20

  Talking into the Ear of a Donkey, 480

  Tammuz, bright with feathers, goes to the Underworld, 395

  Tao Te Ching Running, 77

  Tasting Heaven, 345

  Teapot, The, 491

  Teeth Mother Naked at Last, The, 81

  Tell me why it is we don’t lift our voices these days, 427

  Tell Tristan the tip of his tongue is beautiful, 418

  Testifying to the Night, 408

  That afternoon I had been fishing alone, 191

  That morning I heard water being poured into a teapot, 491

  That Problem in the Family, 484

  That’s odd—I am trying to sit still, 180

  The Arctic moose drinks at the tundra’s edge, 251

  The bear in his heavy fur rises from the bed, 253

  The bird dips to take some water in its bill, 261

  The birds fly away into the air that never ends, 111

  The blue sky suddenly gone—fog. We cut the engine and drift, 140

  The board floats on the river, 246

  The body is like a November birch facing the full moon, 22

  The bombers spread out, temperature steady, 49

  The Boston College team has gold helmets, under which the, 125

  The bridegroom wanted to reach the Norwegian Church, 454

  The Buddhist ordered his boy to bring him, New Year’s, 213

  The cabin of the early snail swerves and falls, 241

  The cardinal’s cry could be heard at Gettysburg, 403

  The cherry branches sway . . . they are arms that prophesy, 131

  The child left alone on the butte calls out to his grandmother in the pine, 202

  The cross-hatching brings the night into the day, 402

  The crow nests high in the fir, 252

  The cry of those being eaten by America, 41

  The cucumbers are thirsty, their big leaves turn away from the, 168

  The day is awake. The bark calls to the rain still in the cloud, 187

  The day the minister ran off with the choir director, 351

  The dock is done, pulled out on the lake. How I love, 193

  The doctor arrives to inject the movie star against delirium tremens, 75

  The donkey has led us through so many cultures!, 445

  The dove returns; it found no resting place, 14

  The drum says that the night we die will be a long night, 451

  The Dutch have been growing tulips since 1500, 380

  The dying bull is bleeding on the mountain!, 64

  The eighty-five-year-old man stands up, 318

  The elephants rock back and forth, their vast gray heads with, 132

  The fall has come, clear as the eyes of chickens, 29

  The Farallones seals clubbed, 201

  The Fathers put their trust in the end of the world, 488

  The fields are black once more, 176

  “The fish are in the fishman’s window,” the grain, 393

  “The Five Ways of Knowing the World” worries me, 399

  The Gaiety of Form, 273

  The girl in a housedress, pushing open the window, 14

  The goose cries, and there is no way to save her, 411

  The grass is half-covered with snow, 30

  The Hampshire ewes standing in their wooden pens, 324

  The harsh bark on the calendar oaks and the bowl, 436

  The hawk sweeps down from his aerie, 262

  The horse lay on his knees sleeping, 175

  The horses gallop east, over the steppes, each with its rider, 160

  The ink we write with seeps in through our fingers, 391

  The man and the woman linger under a tree, 241

  The man who sits up late at night cutting, 292

  The man with the Roman nose sits high, 220

  The mountain bushes move toughly in the wind. There has been, 149

  The mountain receives the last sunshine of fall, 114

  The mourning dove insists there is only one morning, 421

  The mourning dove’s call woke me, 479

  The music that Nirmala is playing today goes, 467

  The nest is white as the foam thrown up when the sea hits rocks!, 121

  The nimble ovenbird, the dignity of pears, 485

  “Then the bright being disguised as a seal dove into the deep billows,” 252

  The oaks reluctantly let their leaves fall, 407

  The ocean swirls up over the searock. It falls back, returns, and, 135

  The old Germans step inside Trinity Church, 422

  The old man sits in his chair and looks down, 472

  The orange stripes on his head shoot forward into the future, 128

  The Pharaoh’s wives touch the mud with their toes, 374

  The pin fails, and the wagon goes over the cliff, 385

  The poor and the dazed and the idiots, 62

  The Prodigal Son is kneeling in the husks, 200

  The quivering wings of the winter ant, 239

  The ram walks over the minty grass, 249

  There are eyes in the dry wisps of grass, 174

  There are longings to kill that cannot be seen, 51

  There are more like us. All over the world, 361

  There are people who don’t want Kierkegaard to be, 412

  There Are So Many Platos, 421

  There are so many stories. In one, a bear, 319

  There are so many things to love around, 342

  There are so many worlds under the fingernails—, 497

  There are women we love whom we never see again, 183

  There has been light snow, 23

  There is a bird that flies through the water, 114

  There is a dense energy that pools in the abdomen and wants to, 165

  There is another darkness, 42

  There is a time. Things end, 322

  There is something men and women living in houses, 463

  There is so much forgotten rock in the world, 269

  There is so much sweetness in children’s voices, 466

  There is still time for the old days when the musician, 504

  There is unknown dust that is near us, 6

  There’s a boy in you about three, 354

  There’s a graceful way of doing things. Birch branches, 367

  There’s a joyful night in which we lose, 67

  There’s no doubt winter is coming. I see, 474

  There’s no end to the going forth on ships, 470

  There’s no use whining over lost worlds, 498

  There’s something dangerous, 355

  There’s something we hold to in the morning. Maybe, 494

  There was a boy who never got enough, 330

  There was a man who didn’t know what was his, 333

  The roses lift from the green strawberry-like leaves, their, 208

  The rubbing of the sleeping bag on my ear made me dream a, 210

  “The Russians had few doctors on the front line,” 316

  The salty stars experience the ruin of the world, 503

  The sea boils in over underwater rocks, then swiftly pulls back, 135

  These pines, these fall oaks, these rocks, 27

 
; These suggestions by Asians are not taken seriously, 49

  The shocks said that winter, 310

  The singers will never stop protesting against the rain, 432

  The snow is falling, and the world is calm, 491

  The sorrow of an old horse standing in the rain, 431

  The soul is in love with marshy ground and snails, 404

  The soul said, “Give me something to look at,” 312

  The spider sways in October winds; she hears the whisk, 485

  The spring wind blows dissatisfactions, 114

  The stone driveway is littered with chill leaves, damp in the, 147

  The sun goes down in the dusty April night, 194

  The sun is sinking. Each minute the air darker. The night thickens, 159

  The sun is sinking. Here on the pine-hunted bank, the mosquitoes, 7

  The sunlight on wheat-heads in August holds me firmly, 505

  The sun orange and rose, 238

  The teeth of the black and shaggy pony rips grass from its roots, 192

  The third week moon reaches its light over my father’s farm, 191

  The three-bottom plow is standing in the corner of a stubble, 175

  The three-day, 359

  The vet screams, and throws his crutch at a passerby, 293

  The Viking ship sails into the full harbor, 237

  The Virgin is thinking of a child—who will drive the rioters out, 121

  The waves come—the large fourth wave, 272

  The weather is moody and rainy, 472

  The wind through the box-elder trees, 13

  The woman chained to the shore stands bewildered as night comes, 89

  They lie on the bed, hearing music, 246

  They’ve gathered on the farm lawn, ten people, all ages, 323

  Things to Think, 315

  Thinking about Old Jobs, 330

  Thinking of a child soon to be born, I hunch down among, 138

  Thinking of “The Autumn Fields,” 107

  Thinking of Tu Fu’s Poem, 179

  Thinking of Wallace Stevens on the First Snowy Day in December, 6

  Think in ways you’ve never thought before, 315

  Third Body, The, 240

  This body holds its protective wall around us, it watches us, 160

  This body is made of bone and excited protozoa . . . and it is, 162

  This body offers to carry us for nothing—as the ocean carries, 158

  This burning in the eyes as we open doors, 59

  This grandson of fishes holds inside him, 65

  This new snow seems to speak of virgins, 6

  Thomas and the Codfish’s Psalm, 273

  Thoreau as a Lover, 486

  Those Being Eaten by America, 41

  Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six feet from the house . . . , 199

  Those insects, golden, 177

  Thoughts, 355

  Thoughts in The Cabin, 274

 

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