Monday, September 21, 2009

Broken Fishing Lines


Broken Fishing Lines


Sometimes I slip away on an October day,
Get in my car,
and all that I haven't done—
Letters, poems, praises—fall away
and I drive north,
passing abandoned cabins,
And admiring the shadows
thrown by bare trees
In small towns
where cold waves lap the sand.

The renegade minister—
the one they all gossip
About—would see those waves too,
after throwing his Sunday hat
out the window. He'll be
All right. Death hugs the underside
of oak leaves.
In each cove you pass you will see
What you had to say no to once.

Go ahead, pull off at some empty resort;
Walk among abandoned cabins on the shore.
You'll see the little holes that raindrops
leave in fine sand,
And those old fishing lines
driven up on the rocks.


Robert Bly

Posted over on Jackie's Archive

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