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    The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems
    The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems
    The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems
    Ebook116 pages38 minutes

    The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems

    By Robert Bly

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    About this ebook

    “The poems of The Night Abraham Called to the Stars mark the ripening of a new current in Bly’s career: Now in his mid-70s, he is writing with tremendous energy and clarity and force, and producing some of the best work of his long career.” — The Nation

    A volume of poetry with an emphasis on spirituality from the National Book Award winner.

    Drawing on the profound influence that Islamic poetry, such as Rumi's, has had on his work, Robert Bly transmutes the remarkable ghazal form into a stunning series of poems. In this form, the poet can change the landscape in each stanza, ranging from a love poem to wisdom literature to a complaint about the poet's private life.

    A cultured form with many references to other poems and poets, ghazal poetry challenges and involves the reader. In this volume, Bly's poetry resonates with deep spirituality while sounding the major themes of modern life. Merging wildness and a beautiful formality, this collection assures the reputation of one of the major poets of our era.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061979866
    The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems
    Author

    Robert Bly

    Robert Bly's books of poetry include The Night Abraham Called to the Stars and My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy. His awards include the National Book Award for poetry and two Guggenheims. He lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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    • 4/5
      This book is growing on me. I used to have it rated at three stars, but now it has been upped to four. Earlier, I was trying to make too much sense out of them instead of letting them flow as loosely created vignettes. I regularly read one of these before I go to sleep.

    Book preview

    The Night Abraham Called to the Stars - Robert Bly

    PART ONE

    The Night Abraham Called to the Stars

    Do you remember the night Abraham first called

    To the stars? He cried to Saturn: You are my Lord!

    How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star,

    He cried, You are my Lord! How destroyed he was

    When he watched them set. Friends, he is like us:

    We take as our Lord the stars that go down.

    We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars.

    We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel

    The dirt flying out from behind our hind claws.

    And no one can convince us that mud is not

    Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so.

    We are ready to spend the rest of our life

    Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields.

    We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent.

    We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night.

    My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping,

    Abandoned woman by night. Friend, tell me what to do,

    Since I am a man in love with the setting stars.

    The Wildebeest

    Once more the murky world is becoming confused. Oh

    The essence of Reason’s House is confusion,

    So this development is like the owl becoming owlish.

    Arithmetic has failed to bring order to our sorrow.

    Newton is not guilty, because the man who

    Invents the knife is not responsible for the murder.

    Bees, abandoned by their Queen, clump

    Together in the dusty light of the hemlocks.

    Even programmers don’t know when she will return.

    The Herd Girl and the Shepherd Boy spend all year

    At the opposite shores of the Milky Way.

    In spring the lovers receive one night together.

    The wildebeest leaps into the river spread-legged

    Among the crocodiles; and the wolf packs are sad

    Chasing the caribou endlessly over the steppes.

    The beaver make their dens over and over. Grandmother

    After grandmother dies, and nothing changes.

    The Moses of the beaver does not see the Promised Land.

    Jerez at Easter

    Please tell me why the lamb is in love with the wolf

    And why the child’s finger calls the hammer down

    And why at dusk Alexander walks toward his enemies.

    Tell me why the gazelle grazes so close to the lion

    And why the rat makes up games on the snake’s tail

    And why the student bends his head when he’s attacked.

    One meadow in the redwoods can contain a thousand ferns.

    By this we deduce we are living in the serpent’s home.

    Each curly fern is his tongue unfolding.

    The poet

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