I Have Daughters and I Have Sons

Painting by Marlene Evans



I HAVE DAUGHTERS AND I HAVE SONS

1
Who is out there at six a.m.? The man
Throwing newspapers onto the porch,
And the roaming souls suddenly
Drawn down into their sleeping bodies.

2
Wild words of Jacob Boehme
Go on praising the human body,
But heavy words of the ascetics
Sway in the fall gales.

3
Do I have a right to my poems?
To my jokes? To my loves?
Oh foolish man, knowing nothing-
Less than nothing-about desire.

4
I have daughters and I have sons.
When one of them lays a hand
On my shoulder, shining fish
Turn suddenly in the deep sea.

5
At this age, I especially love dawn
On the sea, stars above the trees,
Pages in The Threefold Life,
And the pale faces of baby mice.

6
Our good life is made of struts
And paper, like those early
Wright Brothers planes. Neighbors
Run along holding the wing-tips.

7
I do love Yeats's decisiveness
As he jumps into a poem,
And that lovely calm in my father's
Hands, as he buttoned his coat.

Robert Bly

Posted over on A Prairie Home Companion