A reading from Robert Bly's (1926-2021) first book of poetry Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962).  The poems of Robert Bly are rooted deep in the earth. Snow and sunshine, barns and cornfields and cars on the empty nighttime roads, abandoned Minnesota lakes and the mood of America now--these are his materials. He sees and talks clearly: he uses no rhetoric nor mannered striving for effect, but instead the simple statement that in nine lines can embody a mood, reveal a profound truth, illuminate in an important way the inward and hidden life. This is a poet of the modern world, thoroughly aware of the complexities of the moment but equally mindful of the great stream of life--all life--of which mankind is only a part.

Bly's "Old Boards" reminds me of the life as a journey described in the "Book of Disquiet" written by Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935).  One of the entries reads "I'll disappear in the fog as a foreigner to all life, as a human island detached from the dream of the sea, as a uselessly existing ship that floats on the surface of everything."  Bly's unique lamentation is for life and its rejuvenative beauty, but a loss in the bargain.