Eating Blackberry Jam

Eating Blackberry Jam


When I hear that God is the same
as existence,
I fall silent,
but I keep turning my eyes
Up to the little creatures
of nonexistence.

Some believe that the sea perch
became identical
To keep the shark from zeroing in.
But staying alive
Doesn't mean they are free
from nonexistence.

The cries of the infant
barn-swallows rising from
The mud-nests fastened ingeniously
to the rafters
Taught me to love
the skinny birds of nonexistence.

Taoists with their thin beards
fishing all day
With a straight hook tell us
they have learned
Not to expect a whole lot
from nonexistence.

Blackberries have so many faces
that their jam
Is a kind of thickening of nothing;
each of us
Loves to eat the thick syrup
of nonexistence.

When each stanza closes
with the same word,
I am glad. A friend says,
"If you're proud of that,
You must be one of the secretaries
of nonexistence!"

Robert Bly

Posted over on Poetry Daily