Morning Poems

Robert Bly

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780060928735
• eBook ISBN: 9780061979835
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

"Morning Poems is a sensational collection — Robert Bly's best in many years. Inspired by the example of William Stafford, Bly decided to embark on the project of writing a daily poem: Every morning he would stay in bed until he had completed the day's work. These 'little adventures/In Morning longing,' as he calls them, address classic poetic subjects (childhood, the seasons, death and heaven) in a way that capitalizes fully on the pun in the book's title. These are morning poems, full of the delight and mystery of waking in a new day, and they also do their share of mourning, elegizing the deceases and capturing the 'moment of sorror before creation.' Some of the poems are dialogues where unconventional speakers include mice, maple trees, bundles of grain, the body, the 'oldest mind' and the soul. A particularly moving sequence involves Bly's imaginative transactions with a great and unlikely precursor, Wallace Stevens. The whole is a fascinating and original book from one of our most fascinating authors."

 — David Lehman

I

EARLY MORNING IN YOUR ROOM

It’s morning. The brown scoops of coffee, the wasplike

Coffee grinder, the neighbors still asleep.

The gray light as you pour gleaming water—

It seems you’ve travelled years to get here.

Finally you deserve a house. If not deserve

It, have it; no one can get you out. Misery

Had its way, poverty, no money at least;

Or maybe it was confusion. But that’s over.

Now you have a room. Those light-hearted books:

The Anatomy of Melancholy, Kafka’s Letter

To His Father, are all here. You can dance

With only one leg, and see the snowflake falling

With only one eye. Even the blind man

Can see. That’s what they say. If you had

A sad childhood, so what? When Robert Burton

Said he was melancholy, he meant he was home.

THE SHOCKS WE PUT OUR PITCHFORKS INTO

The shocks said that winter

Was coming. Each stood there,

Said, “I’ve given myself away.

Take me. It’s over.”

And we did. With the shiny tips

Of our forks, their handles so

Healthy and elegant,

We slipped each bundle free,

Gave it to the load.

Each bundle was like

A soul, tucked back

Into the cloud of souls.

That’s how it will be

After death—such an abundance

Of souls, all together—

None tired, in the heavy wagon.

WHY WE DON’T DIE

In late September many voices

Tell you you will die.

That leaf says it. That coolness.

All of them are right.

Our many souls—what

Can they do about it?

Nothing. They’re already

Part of the invisible.

Our souls have been

Longing to go home

Anyway. “It’s late,” they say.

“Lock the door, let’s go.”

The body doesn’t agree. It says,

“We buried a little iron

Ball under that tree.

Let’s go get it.”

HAWTHORNE AND THE ELEPHANT

Hawthorne’s walking stick—very short—lay

Under glass at the Customs House. On the wharf,

A crab shell, emptied by a gull, lies alone.

His walking sticks lie near…but the crab is gone,

Like Hawthorne. Bedrooms were low;

You were taxed for high ceilings in those days.

Ships brought licorice and peppers. Hawthorne’s father

Died of a fever off the coast of Sumatra,

Guides say, and America, his ship, brought

The first elephant here in 1794.

Water got short on the way; to save the elephant

They gave her thirty bottles of beer a day.

She—Bette—died in Maine, an alcoholic.

How alert we were at the House of Seven Gables!

Clifford’s room is the little one up the secret stairs.

THE OLD WOMAN FRYING PERCH

Have you heard about the boy who walked by

The black water? I won’t say much more.

Let’s wait a few years. It wanted to be entered.

Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand

Reaches out and pulls him in.

There was no

Malice, exactly. The pond was lonely, or needed

Calcium. Bones would do. What happened then?

It was a little like the night wind, which is soft,

And moves slowly, sighing like an old woman

In her kitchen late at night, moving pans

About, lighting a fire, frying some perch for the cat.

For Donald Hall

CONVERSATION WITH THE SOUL

The soul said, “Give me something to look at.”

So I gave her a farm. She said,

“It’s too large.” So I gave her a field.

The two of us sat ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V
• Part VI
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Other Books by Robert Bly
• Copyright
• About the Publisher