Robert Bly – Fourteen Lines

America Explodes

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.
John F. Kerry

March In Washington Against The Vietnam War

by Robert Bly

Looking down, I see feet moving calmly, gaily,
. . almost as if separated from their bodies

But there is something moving in the dark just beyond
. . the edge of our eyes

A boat covered with machine guns moving downstream at night

No one can reach it – – – it is like the shadows
when the Puritans went out at dusk to kill turkeys

America explodes
On the ground, ragged metal riddles the underbrush

We do not respect ourselves!

It is a ceremony of self-abusement,
Like a man in the Assyrian desert
Pouring ashes over his head. . .

We make war
Like a man anointing himself. . .

[Sonnet] You jerk you didn’t call me up

By Bernadette Mayer

You jerk you didn’t call me up

I haven’t seen you in so long

You probably have a fucking tan

& besides that instead of making love tonight

You’re drinking your parents to the airport

I’m through with you bourgeois boys

All you ever do is go back to ancestral comforts

Only money can get—even Catullus was rich but

Nowadays you guys settle for a couch

By a soporific color cable t.v. set

Instead of any arc of love, no wonder

The G.I. Joe team blows it every other time

Wake up! It’s the middle of the night

You can either make love or die at the hands of the Cobra Commander

_________________

To make love, turn to page 121.

To die, turn to page 172.

As I Used To Do

robert-bly_3

Robert Bly

Reclaiming the sacred in our lives naturally brings us once more to the wellspring of poetry.

Robert Bly

Women We Never See Again

by Robert Bly

There are women we love whom we never see again.
They are chestnuts shining in the rain.
Moths hatched in winter disappear behind books.
Sometimes when you put your hand into a hollow tree
you touch the dark places between the stars.
Human war has parted messengers from another planet,
who cross back to each other at night,
going through slippery valleys, farmyards where the rain
has washed out all the tracks,
and when we walk there, with no guide, saddened, in the dark
we see above us glowing the fortress made of ecstatic blue stone.

XLIV

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers
Plucked in the garden, all the summer through
And winter, and it seemed as if they grew
In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.
So, in the like name of that love of ours,
Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,
And which on warm and cold days I withdrew
From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers
Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,
And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine,
Here’s ivy!–take them, as I used to do
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.
Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,
And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

A Man Told Me Once

Bad People

by Robert Bly (1926 –

A man told me once that all the bad people
Were needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails
You need; they are really claws, and we know
Claws. The sharks—what about them?
They make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced men
In black coats who chase you for hours
In dreams—that’s the only way to get you
To the shore. Sometimes those hard women
Who abandon you get you to say, “You.”
A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.
It doesn’t move on its own. Sometimes it takes
A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.
Then they blow across three or four States.
This man told me that things work together.
Bad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas;
And a careless god—who refuses to let people
Eat from the Tree of Knowledge—can lead
To books, and eventually to us. We write
Poems with lies in them, but they help a little.

Given the divide that has developed politically and culturally in this country, I have started to think differently. I have considered that maybe I need to focus less on believing that the chasm can be closed and more on recognizing the counterbalance opposing views provide, the positive that comes from different viewpoints in hopefully preventing either side from tipping over backwards. People are not magnets, opposites do not attract. We tend to be attracted to those with similar experiences and ideas, yet if there is not mutual respect and acceptance for our inherent human diversity we can not succeed as a multi-cultural society.

I wonder, do each of us have a ready list of bad people in our minds? Can we equally construct a list of good people just as easily? What about all the people in the middle, the majority we lump into neither bad or good? And if I was on one of your lists, what would it take for me to go from one list to the other or fall out of sight into the pleasantly benign as neither?

I pose those questions because it feels like our political machines and attack ads are constantly putting candidates into one list or the other, depending on who is paying for the ad. The sheer volume of the ads is overwhelming. Is it time to stop seeing the other side of the political spectrum as bad and ours as good and start seeing them as our neighbors who prevent us from getting too carried away with ourselves and tipping over? Gerrymandering voting districts to artificially create majorities on either side do not provide the agile change that we need in these turbulent times. Democracy wasn’t supposed to go to the cleverest most manipulative side, the side that prevails in courts based on obtuse interpretations of legal points, it was supposed to be an opportunity for majority rule and for that majority to change quickly as needed to respond to issues most relevant to the electorate at the moment.

I fear we have gotten hoodwinked by expert marketing. scientific polling meant to influence outcomes, political strategists, political scientists and pundits with their own hidden agendas focused more on money and less on what is the best possible outcome for our communities and for our future. And in the end, as I turn off the TV unable to withstand another political ad, I welcome the opportunity to spend a little time in Carl Sandburg’s world of poetry, where beautiful unanswerable questions await.

Under the Harvest Moon

by Carl Sandburg

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

When I Am With You

bly

Robert Bly (1926 – )

being to timelessness

by e. e. cummings

being to timelessness as it’s to time,
love did no more begin than love will end;
where nothing is to breathe to stroll to swim
love is the air the ocean and the land

(do lovers suffer? all divinities
proudly descending put on deathful flesh:
are lovers glad? only their smallest joy’s
a universe emerging from a wish)

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star

—do lovers love? why then to heaven with hell.
Whatever sages say and fools, all’s well.

When I Am With You

by Robert Bly

When I am with you, two notes of the sarod
Carry me into a place I am not.
All the farms have disappeared into air.

Those wooden fence posts I loved as a boy —
I can see my father’s face through their wood,
And through his face the sky as threshing ends.

It is such a blessing to hear that we will die,
Ten thousand barks become a hundred thousand;
I knew this friendship with myself couldn’t last forever.

Touch the sarong’s string again, so that the finger
That touched my skin a moment ago
Can become a lightning bolt that closes the door.

Now I know why I keep hinting at the word you —
The sound of you carries me over the border.
We disappear the same way a baby is born.

Some fool with my name has been trying.
To peer all afternoon through the thick boards
Of the fence. Tell that boy it isn’t time.

The Sweet Clear Bell Of The Joys

Kadunce River

Kadunce River, Northern Minnesota

“I am proud only of those days that pass in
undivided tenderness.”

Robert Bly

Gone, Gone, Gone

by Robert Bly

“Search for the longing. O you who love me.” Old Saint

When the wind-sleeve moves in the
. . morning street,
I walk there, and brood on brown things,
On green things,
On the green waves
Lifting at seas, the green wives, and the
. . brood of heaven.

I hear a faint sound, a bell inside the waves
Coming from far off . . . and the sweet clear
Bell of the joys
Of silence pierces
Through the roaring of cars, the hum of tires,
. . the closing of doors.

When I hear that sound, a subtle force, a sheath,
Motherly, wraps me. Inside that sheath
I need no
House or land,
Caught in sweetness as the trout in the
. . running stream.

Full Consciousness

By Juan Ramon Jimenez
Translated by Robert Bly

You are carrying me, full consciousness, god that has desires,

all through the world.

Here, in this third sea,

I almost hear your voice: your voice, the wind,

filling entirely all movements;

eternal colors and eternal lights,

sea colors and sea lights.

Your voice full of white fire

in the universe of water, the ship, the sky,

marking out the roads with delight,

engraving for me with a blazing light my firm orbit:

a black body

with the glowing diamond in its center.

To Jump On The Shore of Death

Kilden

by Olaf Bull

Med ringbjerges øde graanen
ligger et land under lav —
en bleket brokke av maanen
slængt hen i et jordisk hav.

Paa øen steiler en kilde
over det døde land;
dens straaler er store og vilde,
en styrtende lilje av vand!

Men lyt, i de klare dage
naar solen gløder dens skum,
dæmrer en dæmpet klage
gjennem det rene rum.

«Jeg spruter fra hede skaaler,
«jeg dønner fra jordens bryst,
«jeg dømtes med store straaler
«at springe paa dødens kyst,

«hvor ikke paa hundrede mile
«en eneste blomst i knop
«trænger den hede ile,
«som vælder av svælget op!»

Det rinder i maanegløden,
det straalende, sære tegn
paa livets maalløse øde
i lavaens drømme-egn.

Bitter til sidste time
kilden ødsler sit blod,
— der vilde ha dræbt hver kime,
som ramtes av dets flod!

With the desolate grain of the ring mountains
is a low country under
a pale rupture of the moon
thrown into an earthly sea.

On the island, a spring steals
over the frozen land;
its rays are large and wild,
a rushing lily of water!

But listen, on a clear day,
when the sun glows its foam,
makes a muffled complaint
through the pure spirits.

“I sprout from hot bowls,
“I dance from the breast of the earth,
‘I am germinated with big rays
“To jump on the shore of death,

‘Where not in a hundred miles
«A single flower is in bud
“The hot rush needs,
“That swells the throat!”

It flows in the moonlight,
the radiant, strange sign
in the utter desolation of life
in the dream-lava area.

Bitter to the last hour
the source spills its blood,
– that would have killed every germ,
struck by its river!

Come With Me

by Robert Bly

Come with me into those things that have felt this despair for so long—
Those removed Chevrolet wheels that howl with a terrible loneliness
Lying on their backs in the cindery dirt, like men drunk, and naked,
Staggering off down a hill at night to drown at last in the pond.
Those shredded inner tubes abandoned on the shoulders of thru-ways,
Black and collapsed bodies, that tried and burst,
And were left behind;
And the curly steel shavings, scattered about on garage benches,
Sometimes still warm, gritty when we hold them,
Who have given up, and blame everything on the government,
And those roads in South Dakota that feel around in the darkness . . .

Spawned By A Skinny Mother

-chinook-salmon

What Olaf Bull Said

By Robert Bly

“Believe in happiness, Seiglinde, try!”
– Olaf Bull

Happiness is the wind rising
In a field of young plants.

It is a new-fallen apple
Found in the dark earth

Far from the orchard
In plowing time.

Do fish have emotions? Do fish have an inner life? Don’t say that instinct alone propels them up water falls to spawn and die, for their is too much joy in the leaping. Why can’t we as humans project our humanness the beings that inhabit this earth with us, for then the reverse would also be true? Do the non-human beings of the earth project onto us only wildness? Maybe that’s why disorder and chaos and predation of war seem to dominate the 24/7 news cycle as the norm? Maybe the beings of the earth that are not human are plotting our demise? Too late I think as we seem to have that trajectory well in hand on our own.

Let’s hope the salmon swimming upstream are propelled in part by joy. Let’s hope that they swim to one final act of procreation and then their death with the knowledge of completion and a feeling of fulfillment. It might inspire us to follow our journey with the same passion, athleticism and conviction in harmony with nature or more in harmony than we live today. Let’s hope we all can swim back to where we came, in time for one final romance or the completion of a life long one.

Et Overstreget Digt

by Olaf Bull

Bag et gitter af streger
stirrer et daarligt digt.
Et ærligt skind igrunden,
men ikke yppig runden
af sang og stemning og sligt.

Født af en mager moder,
af hjernens skrumpne skjød,
næret af tankefoder,
som hjernecellernes boder
i fattige timer bød — —.

Forstandens hodepine
dirrer i digtets krop –
afmægtig i sin feber
det ramser med tørre læber
sin grimme vise op.

Det rusker i sine streger,
vil løs af det grumme bur; –
det er min farligste fange
trods mange velskabte sange,
som strømmer i min natur.

A Struck-through Poem

by Olaf Bull

Caged-in, a shoddy poem
from bars of strokes peers out.
Honest enough a fellow,
though hardly round and mellow
with song and tuneful clout.

Spawned by a skinny mother
a wizened brain its womb,
mere scraps of thought the fodder
that brain cells had on offer,
in meagre hours consumed – –.

And reason’s fearful migraines
the poem’s body racked –
by fever now prostrated
cracked lips reel off unsated
their ugly tuneless song.

Its bars of notes, it rattles,
its cruel cage that it would force; –
it is my dire captive
though songs well-formed, attractive
course through my whole being.

Something Miraculous Will Happen

It’s The Dream

By Olav Hauge
Translated by Robin Fulton

It’s the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen,
that it must happen –
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the mountains will open
that springs will gush –
that the dream will open,
that one morning we will glide into
some little harbour we didn’t know was there.

June has arrived, a soggier version of itself this year, but none the less welcome. The school year is coming to an end, the teachers in my life every bit as glad for the upcoming break as the students. If I plan it right, there are several weekends of free meals at graduation parties, the promenade of new graduates ever younger appearing it seems than the previous year. It must be that our brains get stuck in a time warp, looking at ourselves each morning and evening in the mirror brushing our teeth, that we are fooled into thinking we are not aging, only to be shocked by how baby faced the new crop of college and high school seniors appear in their garish cap and gowns. How is that every year they appear younger?

I am so glad I am not graduating from anything as formal as school anymore. My personal commencements these days are simpler, more private; a car loan paid off, a house project completed, a big project at work finalized, a son or daughter moving into their first apartment. No new diplomas to be hung on the wall, but the satisfaction of accomplishment equally as genuine. The terrible part of having to settle on a degree is that it seems to limit your options from that point forward. I never really could decide what I wanted to be when I grew up but managed to stumble upon a career that I have truly enjoyed. But if I had it to do over again, my guess is I would have stumbled into something else, as it never felt like I really had a grand plan on how I was going to make a living. My goal today is to keep graduating each spring with fresh skills, regardless if they are employable.

What’s are you graduating from this spring? What shall you commence to do from this new demarcation? Where’s your own little harbor that you didn’t know even existed until you sailed into its’ smooth waters?

Gratitude For Old Teachers

by Robert Bly

When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.
Who is down there but our old teachers?
Water that once could take no human weight-
We were students then- holds up our feet,
And goes on ahead of us for a mile.
Beneath us the teachers, and around us the stillness.

Breaking Into Blossom

Seeing The Eclipse in Maine

by Robert Bly

It started about noon. On top of Mount Batte,
We were all exclaiming. Someone had a cardboard
And a pin, and we all cried out when the sun
Appeared in tiny form on the notebook cover.

It was hard to believe. The high school teacher
We’d met called it a pinhole camera,
People in the Renaissance loved to do that.
And when the moon had passed partly through

We saw on a rock underneath a fir tree,
Dozens of crescents—made the same way—
Thousands! Even our straw hats produced
A few as we moved them over the bare granite.

We shared chocolate, and one man from Maine
Told a joke. Suns were everywhere—at our feet.

Is poetry a monologue or a dialogue? An old question, easily answered from my perspective; it is a dialogue, poetry is a conversation, its up to you to figure out the response.

Robert Bly was born in Madison, Minnesota and continues to live and work in Western Minnesota to the present day. Robert Bly and James Arlington Wright were friends, and helped put Midwestern poetry on the map in the 1950’s. Bly’s life work as a poet is vast, expanding the wealth of English literature by translating a diverse range of poets across many languages with a focus on the spiritual in addition to his many collections of his own poetry.

I worked in Lac Qui Parle County, the landscape of much of Bly’s poetry, for 7 years in the 1990’s. Bly may travel the world within his writing, but it is all grounded in the rich clay silt loam of the prairie. I find it reassuring to see a glimpse of the land I have traveled as an Agronomist for 30 plus years within the poetry of both Bly and Wright.

Bly and Wright traveled very different personal paths in using poetry to wrestle with their demons. Bly being older by one year and yet outliving Wright by 38 years and counting. Wright’s depression is palpable within his poetry, but rather than lessen the experience it heightens it. Both Bly and Wright poetry invite a discussion on the wonderment of this planet and the human condition.

A Blessing Poem

by James Arlington Wright (1927 – 1980)

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.