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Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems QUOTES

Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems QUOTES

1 " We did not come to remain whole. We came to lose our leaves like the trees, Trees that start again, Drawing up from the great roots. "

― Robert Bly , Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems

2 " I am afraid there’ll be a moment when
I fail you, friend; I will turn slightly
Away, our eyes will not meet, and out in the field
There will be no one. "

― Robert Bly , Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems

3 " In the Month of May"

In the month of May when all leaves open,
I see when I walk how well all things
lean on each other, how the bees work,
the fish make their living the first day.
Monarchs fly high; then I understand
I love you with what in me is unfinished.

I love you with what in me is still
changing, what has no head or arms
or legs, what has not found its body.
And why shouldn't the miraculous,
caught on this earth, visit
the old man alone in his hut?

And why shouldn't Gabriel, who loves honey,
be fed with our own radishes and walnuts?
And lovers, tough ones, how many there are
whose holy bodies are not yet born.
Along the roads, I see so many places
I would like us to spend the night. "

― Robert Bly , Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems

4 " Snowfall in the Afternoon"

1

The grass is half-covered with snow.
It was the sort of snowfall that starts in late afternoon
And now the little houses of the grass are growing dark.

2

If I reached my hands down near the earth
I could take handfuls of darkness!
A darkness was always there which we never noticed.

3

As the snow grows heavier the cornstalks fade farther away
And the barn moves nearer to the house.
The barn moves all alone in the growing storm.

4

The barn is full of corn and moves toward us now
Like a hulk blown toward us in a storm at sea;
All the sailors on deck have been blind for many years. "

― Robert Bly , Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems