Lapis Magazine

In the Rift by Robert Bly

A poem.

Robert Bly, winner of the National Book Award for poetry, is the author of many books, including The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, The Sibling Society, Iron John and, with Marion Woodman,The Maiden King.

There were a thousand sheep admiring the Milky Way.
Birds start singing when the branch reddens.
But we usually write poems when the sun goes down.

In the Rift we saw the sun go down so often.
But every morning when we opened an egg,
The sun was there again inside the small shell.

We wanted to rip hair at death. But we had enough
To do finding big stones to cover the dead
And begetting new souls to replace them.

For thousands of years we looked up at the night.
We saw the Bear, the Hunter and his Sword.
The Bear the Hunter and his Sword stayed out all night.

We never found enough morning! One day a woman
Wept when she saw a bone reddened with ochre.
A thousand years later we put a bead in a grave.

It turned out differently than we had expected.
Dozens and dozens of stars go down every night
So that mourning is now enclosed in every egg.