1
Who is out there at six a.m.? The man
Throwing newspapers onto the porch,
And the roaming souls suddenly
Drawn down into their sleeping bodies.
2
Wild words of Jacob Bohme
Go on praising the human body,
But heavy words of the ascetics
Sway in the fall gales.
3
Do I have a right to my poems?
To my jokes? To my loves?
Oh foolish man, knowing nothing -
Less than nothing - about desire.
4
I have daughters and I have sons.
When one of them lays a hand
On my shoulder, shining fish
Turn suddenly in the deep sea.
5
At this age, I especially love dawn
On the sea, stars above the trees,
Pages in The Threefold Life,
And the pale faces of baby mice.
6
Perhaps our life is made of struts
And paper, like those early
Wright Brothers planes. Neighbors
Run along holding the wingtips.
7
I do love Yeats's fierceness
As he jumped into a poem,
And that lovely calm in my father's
Hands, as he buttoned his coat.
~ Robert Bly
from Talking into the Ear of a Donkey