For several years, the poet Robert Bly’s work has been influenced by an Islamic form called the ghazal. Originating in tenth-century Persia (now Iran), the ghazal consists of self-contained stanzas, each of which could be a complete poem in its own right.
— Ed.
Loafing With Friends At Ojo Caliente
For Hanna and Martín Mineral pools remember a lot about history. Here we are at Ojo Caliente, sitting together, Soaking up the rumble of earth’s forgetfulness. Why should we worry if Anna Karenina ends badly? The world is reborn each time a mouse Puts her foot down on the dusty barn floor. Sometimes ohs and ahs bring us joy. When You place your life inside the vowels, the music Opens the doors to a hundred closed nights. People say that even in the highest heaven If you managed to keep your ears open You would hear angels weeping night and day. The culture of the Etruscans has disappeared. So many things are over. A thousand hopes F. Scott Fitzgerald had for himself are gone. No one is as lucky as those who live on earth. Even the Pope finds himself longing for darkness. The sun catches on fire in the lonely heavens.
Call And Answer
August 2002 Tell me why it is we don’t lift our voices these days And cry over what is happening. Have you noticed The plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting? I say to myself: “Go on, cry. What’s the sense Of being an adult and having no voice? Cry out! See who will answer! This is Call and Answer!” We will have to call especially loud to reach Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding In the jugs of silence filled during our wars. Have we agreed to so many wars that we can’t Escape from silence? If we don’t lift our voices, we allow Others (who are ourselves) to rob the house. How come we’ve listened to the great criers — Neruda, Akhmatova, Thoreau, Frederick Douglass — and now We’re silent as sparrows in the little bushes? Some masters say our life lasts only seven days. Where are we in the week? Is it Thursday yet? Hurry, cry now! Soon Sunday night will come.
Stealing Sugar From The Castle
We are poor students who stay after school to study joy. We are like those birds in the India mountains. I am a widow whose child is her only joy. The only thing I hold in my antlike head Is the builder’s plan of the castle of sugar. Just to steal one grain of sugar is joy! Like a bird, we fly out of darkness into the hall, Which is lit with singing, then fly out again. Being shut out of the warm hall is also a joy. I am a laggard, a loafer, and an idiot. But I love To read about those who caught one glimpse Of the Face, and died twenty years later in joy. I don’t mind your saying I will die soon. Even in the sound of the word soon, I hear The word you which begins every sentence of joy. “You’re a thief!” the judge said. “Let’s see Your hands!” I showed my callused hands in court. My sentence was a thousand years of joy.
Growing Wings
It’s all right if Cézanne goes on painting the same picture. It’s all right if juice tastes bitter in our mouths. It’s all right if the old man drags one useless foot. The apple on the Tree of Paradise hangs there for months. We wait for years and years on the lip of the falls; The blue-gray mountain keeps rising behind the black trees. It’s all right if I feel this same pain until I die. A pain that we have earned gives more nourishment Than the joy we won at the lottery last night. It’s all right if the partridge’s nest fills with snow. Why should the hunter complain if his bag is empty At dusk? It only means the bird will live another night. It’s all right if we turn in all our keys tonight. It’s all right if we give up our longing for the spiral. It’s all right if the boat I love never reaches shore. If we’re already so close to death, why should we complain? Robert, you’ve climbed so many trees to reach the nests. It’s all right if you grow your wings on the way down.
The poems on these pages are reprinted from Bly’s latest book, My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy. © 2005 by Robert Bly. They appear here by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
