Gratitude (For Robert Bly)
Just as sunlight casts a shadow the first shade of another day
Interrupted in his sleep still in half a dream
Nettled into awaking wishing light away
Drinking his cup of coffee puzzling what he wants to say
The evening before he'd tried to tell it
He'd showed off all his ecstatic truths
and wine had encouraged his bray
He'd gone to bed long before the point was proved
And risen deep in the night to walk
To wander under stars And time and again
He'd wished then that his children had come walking with hm
To wonder at stars until they grew dim
Sharing the thoughts that spin him like butterflies trapped within him
And so he thinks himself unlucky this someone who has eyes to see
Who finds stars when wanting stars who can sing the moon
Someone whose feet get sandy in the hidden dunes
Someone who knows the ocean who knows what he has to do
He still thinks his mind is full of tangles
Whose mind to him just a mangle is
and who thinks his poems a mess
Even though he tells the truth long before the point is proved
And rises deep in the night to write
To wander until light and fly words like kites
Whose children share their father's inner intuition
To sing to the moon I think maybe soon
Somebody ought to tell him Maybe we ought to tell him
Something he ought to know
Something his poems show