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