Poem of the Day

I feel like I’ve been reading a lot lately about how humans are the only beings who set such store on the past and future, rather than living in the moment. That could just be because I’ve been reading about dogs, but I still think it’s a valid point. I’ve read a number of Robert Bly’s translations, and heard him read a number of poems in Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems collection. I haven’t read much of his original poetry, though.

Wanting Sumptuous Heavens
By Robert Bly

No one grumbles among the oyster clans,
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come, again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.

The PotD will very likely be on hiatus until sometime next week when I get internet access in the new house. I remember walking through a culvert with my mom when I was little because it was the “shortcut” to the trail to climb Prospect Mountain.

Kneeling Down to Peer into a Culvert
By Robert Bly

I kneel down to peer into a culvert.
The other end seems far away.
One cone of light floats in the shadowed water.
This is how our children will look when we are dead.

I kneel near floating shadowy water.
On my knees, I am half inside the tunnel—
blue sky widens the far end—
darkened by the shadowy insides of the steel.

Are they all born? I walk on farther;
out in the plowing I see a lake newly made.
I have seen this lake before…. It is a lake
I return to each time my children are grown.

I have fathered so many children and returned
to that lake—grayish flat slate banks,
low arctic bushes. I am a water-serpent throwing water drops
off my head. My gray loops trail behind me.

How long I live there alone! For a thousand years
I am alone, with no duties, living as I live.
Then one morning a head like mine pokes from the water.
I fight—it’s time, it’s right—and am torn to pieces fighting.

Current Tea: wedding chai (Indian black tea blended with cardamom and vanilla)