Barefoot

WORLDLIT.ORG 61 After the Funeral by Robert Bly There’ll be no more mother. We’ll have to live now With the looks on the faces of our friends, And half-open windows, and lamps that go on By themselves, and an egg standing on a plate. Last night I dreamt I entered a house I knew well. A woman, still single, unmarried, lived there, soon To be my wife, but living with another man. She stood by the window, and I chose her once more. The next day, my brother, not dead at all, and I Found ourselves in the very spot where The Rocky Mountains rise straight up out of the plains. That was all in my dream. Later that night, I dreamt I had entered a monastery. Men with tonsured heads stood all around me. Everywhere there were lamps that go on by themselves. And my brother was there, not dead at all. Robert Bly is an internationally recognized poet, translator, and editor. His most recent books include Talking into the Ear of a Donkey (W.W. Norton) and Like the New Moon I Will Live My Life (White Pine). His collected poems are forthcoming from Norton. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Ruth. above Sam Roxas-Chua 姚, Pilgrim, 27 x 51 in., sumi-e and squid ink. www.samroxaschua.com Barefoot by Kevin Hart Still of our world, dear father, in your grave Or at my winter window, looking hard Into a life you never knew in life: This house of books, this fire that cracks a whip At cats and shadows when they cross the room, Vast silences that swallow days alive. Dear father, know another life, your own, Not of this world, seen faintly through past love As though it were a frosted windowpane, Know you can go there, to that other world, By walking barefoot in the dark tonight, As happened all the time at home in time With just a fraying God to keep you warm On winter nights, in Brisbane, in the nights You couldn’t sleep for memories of war, Know in that other world you are your life, Complete, intact, and brimming high with love; Know nothing comes undone there, not a thing. Faint shadows gather in the afternoon Around a house, around a fighting fire; Look past them all, look through the icy rain, A night not of this world yet drawing close, Come from a time that’s hollowed of all time. Don’t sleep tonight, dear father, darkness eats Shadows and men alive, just walk barefoot Into that other world: no darkness there, All warm, in silences and words, all warm. Australian poet Kevin Hart’s latest verse collection is Barefoot (2017). Other recent collections include Wild Track: New and Selected Poems (2015) and Morning Knowledge (2011). Recent scholarly books include Poetry and Revelation (2017) and Kingdoms of God (2014). He teaches at the University of Virginia. ...

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