A Busy Man Speaks
Not to the mother of solitude will I give myself
Away, not to the mother of art, nor the mother
Of the ocean, nor the mother of the snake and the fire;
Not to the mother of love,
Nor the mother of conversation, nor the mother
Of the downcast face, nor the mother of the solitude of
death;
Not to the mother of the night full of crickets,
Nor the mother of the open fields, nor the mother of Christ.
But I will give myself to the father of righteousness, the
father
Of cheerfulness, who is also the father of rocks,
Who is also the father of perfect gestures;
From the Chase national Bank
An arm of flame has come, and I am drawn
To the desert, to the parched places, to the landscape of
zeros;
And I shall give myself away to the father of righteousness,
The stones of cheerfulness, the steel of money, the father of
rocks.
by Robert Bly
from Contemporary American Poetry;
Penguin Books, 1962