transition

for WCW

I wish I understood the beauty

in leaves falling. To whom

are we beautiful

as we go?

I lie in the field

still, absorbing the stars

and silently throwing off

their presence. Silently

I breathe and die

by turns.

He was ripe 

and fell to the ground

from a bough

out where the wind

is free

of the branches

David Ignatow

---

Attempting to answer David Ignatow's question

I wish I understood the beauty

in leaves falling. To whom 

are we beautiful

as we go?

We are beautiful to the Mother as we go.

There are mysterious roads in jade that

Old men follow,

Routes that migratory birds walk on,

The circle dances

Iron filings do,

The things we cannot say.

Salmon find their way to old beds;

Sleeping bodies are not alone.

Robert Bly

thank you beauty we love 

A Third Body

A man and a woman sit near each other, and they 

do not long at this moment to be older, or

younger, nor born in any other nation, or time, or

place.

They are content to be where they are, talking or

not talking.  Their breaths together feed someone

whom we do not know.

The man sees the way his fingers move; he sees

her hands close around a book she hands to him.

They obey a third body they have in common.

They have made a promise to love that body.

Age may come, parting may come, death will

come.

A man and woman sit near each other; as they 

breathe they feed someone we do not know,

someone we know of, whom we have never seen.

Robert Bly