Solitude Late at Night in the Woods, poem by Robert Bly

SOLITUDE LATE AT NIGHT IN THE WOODS
by Robert Bly

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!
 
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.
 
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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert Bly (born1926) is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the mythopoetic men’s movement. His most commercially successful book to date was Iron John: A Book About Men (1990), a key text of the mythopoetic men’s movement, which spent 62 weeks on the The New York Times Best Seller list. He won the 1968National Book Award for Poetry for his book The Light Around the Body. (Read more at wikipedia.org.)

PHOTO: “Full moon rising through birch tree forest” by Paul Pluskwik, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.