De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Robert Bly werd geboren op 23 december 1926 in Madison, Minnesota. Zie ook mijn blog van 23 december 2008 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2009 en ook mijn blog van 23 december 2010.
The Buried Train
Tell me about the train that people say got buried
By the avalanche–was it snow?–It was
In Colorado, and no one saw it happen.
There was smoke from the engine curling up
Lightly through fir tops, and the engine sounds.
There were all those people reading–some
From Thoreau, some from Henry Ward Beecher.
And the engineer smoking and putting his head out.
I wonder when that happened. Was it after
High School, or was it the year we were two?
We entered this narrow place, and we heard the sound
Above us–the train couldn’t move fast enough.
It isn’t clear what happened next. Are you and I
Still sitting there in the train, waiting for the lights
To go on? Or did the real train get really buried;
So at night a ghost train comes out and keeps going…
SOLITUDE LATE AT NIGHT IN THE WOODS
I
The body is like a November birch facing the full moon
And reaching into the cold heavens.
In these trees there is no ambition, no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire!
II
My last walk in the trees has come. At dawn
I must return to the trapped fields,
To the obedient earth.
The trees shall be reaching all the winter.
III
It is a joy to walk in the bare woods.
The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down, and touching the soaked earth,
Giving off the odor that partridges love.
Robert Bly (Madison, 23 december 1926)
Een jonge Robert Bly
Lees verder “Robert Bly, Norman Maclean, Marcelin Pleynet, Tim Fountain, Iván Mándy”