.
.
Ocean light as we wake reminds us how dark
Our old house is. That's home. Like Hamlet,
One visit to Wittenberg is enough, and we'll soon be
Back in crazy Denmark. I dreamt I stood
.
In a machine shop; my dead father stands beside me.
We talk, but his eyes remain on my chest.
I say to him for the first him:"Oh look at me
When we talk." I could see cubbyholes
.
With dark tools, and a rough floor stained with oil.
Clotted windows, cobwebs, a black vise.
But sunlight outside our windows speaks of ocean
Light, bone light, Labrador light, prairie light.
.
It's the same light that glints off swords, and shines
From Idaho rivers some days, and from the thin
Face just before death. I say to my father,
"We could be there if we could lift our eyes."
.
~ Robert Bly
from Morning Poems
photo by Kathleen Connally
.