Evolution From the Fish

Evolution from the Fish


This grandson of fishes holds inside him
A hundred thousand small black stones.
This nephew of snails, six feet long,
lies naked on a bed
With a smiling woman,
his head throws off light under marble,
he is moving toward his own life
Like fur, walking. And when the frost
comes, he is Fur, mammoth fur,
growing longer and silkier,
passing the woman’s dormitory,
Kissing a stomach,
leaning against a pillar,
He moves toward the animal,
the animal with furry head!


What a joy to smell the flesh
of a new child!
Like new grass! And this long man
with the student girl,
Coffee cups, her pale waist,
the spirit moving around them,
Moves, dragging a great tail
into the darkness.
In the dark we blaze up,
drawing pictures of spiny fish,
we throw off the white stones!
Serpents rise from the ocean floor
with spiral motions,
A man goes inside a jewel, and sleeps.
Do not hold my hands down!
Let me raise them!
A fire is passing up
through the soles of my feet!


Robert Bly

Posted over on Poetry Foundation

Robert Bly, “Evolution from the Fish” from The Light Around the Body. Copyright © 1967 and renewed 1995 by Robert Bly.