Eating the Honey of Words

The Citizen-Times is reporting "Robert Bly, one of America's most influential poets, will discuss "The Soul is Here for Its Own Joy: An Evening of Sacred Poetry," at 7:30 p.m. April 25, at UNC Asheville's Humanities Lecture Hall. Bly will read from his own work and will talk about the poetry of Rumi, Hafez and Mirabai.

In his wide-ranging role as groundbreaking poet, poetry translator, storyteller, editor and father of what he calls "the expressive men's movement," Bly remains one of the hotly debated artists of the past half-century. His bestselling book, “Iron John,” sparked the popular men’s movement and defined a whole generation’s view on masculinity. Bly is the author of more than 30 books of poetry, including the 1968 collection “The Light Around the Body,” which won the National Book Award. As editor of The Fifties, The Sixties and The Seventies magazines, Bly introduced many unknown European and South American poets to an American audience. He is editor of many poetry collections and author of numerous of nonfiction books. Bly’s honors include Guggenheim, Rockefeller and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships.

General admission tickets are $15; $10 for senior citizens. To reserve tickets by phone, call the UNC Asheville Box Office at 828/232-5000. Tickets may also be purchased with cash or check at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood St., downtown Asheville."

The Indigo Bunting

I go to the door often.
Night and summer. Crickets
lift their cries.
I know you are out.
You are driving
late through the summer night.

I do not know what will happen.
I have no claim on you.
I am one star
you have as guide; others
love you, the night
so dark over the Azores.

You have been working outdoors,
gone all week. I feel you
in this lamp lit
so late. As I reach for it
I feel myself
driving through the night.

I love a firmness in you
that disdains the trivial
and regains the difficult.
You become part then
of the firmness of night,
the granite holding up walls.

There were women in Egypt who
supported with their firmness the stars
as they revolved,
hardly aware
of the passage from night
to day and back to night.

I love you where you go
through the night, not swerving,
clear as the indigo
bunting in her flight,
passing over two
thousand miles of ocean.

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Folks, go if you can, this is one of America's true voices!