Poetry Matters

Dear Readers:

Madame is away enjoying a wondrous vacation (yes, you can sense the envy, can’t you, readers? Lol) and looks like she won’t make it back in time to post.  While she is away, I thought I would share something I promised Madame a while back: some wonderful thoughts and poetry from Robert Bly, who I had the pleasure and the privilege of hearing give a talk and discussion many months ago now.

Robert Bly, a self-described fierce advocate for free and open expression, talked about:  Insanity of Empire (doesn’t work!).  Poets Against the Vietnam War (an insightful historical glimpse).  And then he read poetry.  Elderly and a bit cranky now, slow, deliberate, almost frail looking, with a little cough, he mumbles a little now and then.  His mind can still come across with sharp wisdom, however.   Says appreciatively that he had a great mother and a good father. 

He read poetry to us, and some were random observations of feelings, experiences, situations, while others are poetic calls to think more deeply to our human essences:

“Naked on the road.”

“Lived our own deaths a thousand times.”

“Don’t expect us to appreciate creation.  Each of us is a late comer to the earth.”

“Don’t give up hope.  That door of mercy may still be open.”

“Hard to grasp the extreme generosity that lets us go on breathing.”

“Each of us deserves to be forgiven.”

“So many small boats have gone down in the storm.”

“Forgiven for our persistence in refusing to go down in the storm.”

“100 boats are still longing for shore.”

“There is more in my hopes than I imagine.”

“A tiny roof nail on the ground longs for the roof.”

“A warm feeling your balls created in the night.” (his self-deprecating humor)

“The dignity of error.”

“How much we want the impermanent to become permanent.”

“Old men and women know how much time goes by in praying.  Let’s not try to cheer each other up.  Let’s stay in grieving another 100 years.”

“Listen to water poured in teapots.  All at once I knew that you love me in unheard of things. Love, audible, in water falling.”

“We are all farmers of a different sort.”

“To get to Heaven; lived for nothing.”

“Even if you’re a Republican, don’t give up hope.”

“Would rather I didn’t interrupt you—or myself.”

“I have sons, and I have daughters, and when one of them lays a hand on my shoulder, a shiny fish turns in the sea.” (with respect to Hemingway)

“Like a picnic in which the basket eats the food.”

“Some never say when the battle is.  It was last night.  You lost.”

“He reflected upon One Life, One Woman.  That was God’s rule, and he didn’t like it much.”

“Friend of wisdom who receives this wine and yet still sleeps, is a traitor to love.”

“I want to be far away from people whose words and deeds don’t match.”

“Like water, your beautiful, flowing poems for us, Amen.”

“Poetry used to never be done without music.”  [why the satar player was there, accompanying him with music as he spoke his poetry]

“Men are shy and think they have nothing to share and that women will make fun of them.”

“Why does one voice live and another dies?”

“Sunday is listening to the incoming week.  It might be better to fall silent.”

“How many men are alone in their lives?  And how many marry the wrong person?  And father and sons are strangers?”

“It is all right if we keep forgetting the way home.  There are a lot of shady characters in this town, and you are one of them.” 

“The salty tears of the world.”

“He had the gift of trying to hold the world together.” [Of his father, who kept other farmers afloat in the Depression]

“If you see Jacob, tell him that I am his son.”

“There is so much sweetness in children’s voices.  And so much discontent at the end of days.”

“Everywhere people are longing for a deeper life.  Let’s hope some acrobat will come by and give us a hint of the gift in heaven.”