Happy Birthday, Robert

Robert Bly was born today in 1926.

"I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one's own life."



Johnson’s Cabinet Watched by Ants

I
It is a clearing deep in a forest: overhanging boughs
Make a low place. Here the citizens we know during the day,
The ministers, the department heads,
Appear changed: the stockholders of large steel companies
In small wooden shoes; here are the generals dressed as gamboling lambs.

II
Tonight they burn the rice supplies; tomorrow
They lecture on Thoreau; tonight they move around the trees;
Tomorrow they pick the twigs from their clothes;
Tonight they throw the firebombs; tomorrow
They read the Declaration of Independence; tomorrow they are in church.

III
Ants are gathered around an old tree.
In a choir they sing, in harsh and gravelly voices,
Old Etruscan songs on tyranny.
Toads nearby clap their small hands, and join
The fiery songs, their five long toes trembling in the soaked earth.