Friday, April 16, 2010

The New Yorker magazine arrived today in the mail (thank you, always, to my dear friend Marilyn for renewing my subscription) and as always, the first thing I turn to are the poems. Actually, that is odd, because for years I have lamented the fact that MOST of the poems published in The New Yorker...are...well...not ones that knock my socks off. Often they seem pretentious and "out there" and the reason so many people think of poetry as so unaccessible. However, once in awhile, a poem will be published that just defies this contention I have for New Yorker poems and I am humbled. Below you will find the poem that invited me to read it over and over...I love the way the words sound in my mouth when I read it aloud. The images are exquisite. Each stanza is like a treasure that fills my head. The last stanza just settles in me so gently.

I HAVE DAUGHTERS AND I HAVE SONS

By Robert Bly

1.
Who is out there at 6 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 Boehme
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’ve always loved Yeats’s fierceness
As he jumped into a poem,
And that lovely calm in my father’s
Hands as he buttoned his coat.