The Man with that Great Shock of Hair

Speaking of Robert Bly here and there, I thought I'd post a poem that meant a lot to me when I first read it many years ago. In many ways it stands in nicely for a Bly style that can be easily misunderstood and ridiculed. But he is delving for something deeper than a typical suburban scene, and I think he reaches it nicely and disturbingly.

Snowbanks North of the House

Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six
feet from the house ...
Thoughts that go so far.
The boy gets out of high school and reads no more
books;
the son stops calling home.
The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no
more bread.
And the wife looks at her husband one night at a
party, and loves him no more.
The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls
leaving the church.
It will not come closer
the one inside moves back, and the hands touch
nothing, and are safe.

The father grieves for his son, and will not leave the
room where the coffin stands.
He turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

And the sea lifts and falls all night, the moon goes on
through the unattached heavens alone.

The toe of the shoe pivots
in the dust ...
And the man in the black coat turns, and goes back
down the hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away,
and did not climb the hill.

Notice the generic quality of boy and son and mother, etc., along with the emphatic present tense. Also the rhythm relying on a sporadic anapestic intensity. He may have overused this style to the brink of parody, but I still love this poem. It may not be his best, but it meant a lot to that son/father/husband then.