I received permission from Robert Bly’s wife Ruth to post the poems I had chosen for my book club, the ones Renee suggested we not post because of not having permission. But with permission, she suggested I share them now. So…here they are:
Or Robert’s The Dark Autumn Nights…?
Imagination is the door to the raven’s house, so we are
Already blessed! The one nail that fell from the shoe
Lit the way for Newton to get home from the Fair.
Last night I heard a thousand holy women
And a thousand holy men apologize at midnight
Because there was too much triumph in their voices.
Those lovers, skinny and badly dressed, hated
By parents, did the work; all through the Middle Ages,
It was the lovers who kept the door open to heaven.
Walking home, we become distracted whenever
We pass apple orchards. We are still eating fruit
Left on the ground the night Adam was born.
St. John of the Cross heard an Arab love poem
Through the bars and began his poem. In Nevada it was
Always the falling horse that discovered the mine.
Robert, you know well how much substance can be
Wasted by lovers, but I say, Blessings on those
Who go home through the dark autumn nights.
I love the tiny book, Four Ramages, with illustrations & graphics by Barbara LaRue King.
Grief lies close to the roots of laughter.
Both love the cabin open to the traveller,
the ocean apple wrapped in its own leaves.
How can I be close to you if I am not sad?
There is a gladness in the not-caring
of the bear’s cabin; and in the gravity
that makes the stone laugh down the mountain.
The animal pads where no one walks.
Meanwhile, I found my Yeats collection and further inspired by Barbara in Rivertown, I also found “Now We Are Six” by A A Milne…and decided to do “Down by the Sally Gardens” and “He Bids His Beloved Be At Peace” by Yeats; “Wheezles and Sneezles” by Milne. But I still love Bly’s poems…
PS…I just changed my mind again, well, added one (I hope), “King John Was Not A Good Man” by Milne because it is about Christmas.
Enough of my favorites, please share more of yours.
Trail Baboon 
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