I've never read much Robert Bly. I recognize a few titles but couldn't tell you much about the man or his work. But today I found myself sharing my bath time with him. It's a rainy day in Kansas, cold for May, and I have spent it--mostly--alone. Lunch with a good friend and then the bookstore where I picked up Bly, Amichai, Ferlinghetti, and most of the rest of the day has been in the company of Mad Men. It's a series that entertains as much as it horrifies. Are we really so awful, we lonely humans? I suppose the answer is yes, but I so wish it wasn't.
Anyway, Robert and I shared the bath together and this poem stopped me. There in the steam, as alone really as a person can get, these words made me feel less lonely.
People Like Us--for James Wright
----Robert Bly
There are more like us. All over the world
There are confused people, who can't remember
The name of their dog when they wake up, and
people
Who love God but can't remember where
He was when they went to sleep. It's
All right. The world cleanses itself this way.
A wrong number occurs to you in the middle
Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time
To save the house. And the second-story man
Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,
And he's lonely , and they talk, and the thief
Goes back to college. Even in graduate school,
You can wander into the wrong classroom,
And hear great poems lovingly spoken
By the wrong professor. And you find your soul
And greatness has a defender, and even in death
you're safe
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