Why we don’t die

In late September many voices

Tell you you will die.

That leaf says it. That coolness.

All of them are right.

Our many souls- what

Can they do about it?

Nothing. They’re already

Part of the invisible.

Our souls have been

Longing to go home

Anyway. ‘It’s late,’ they say.

‘Lock the door, let’s go.’

The body doesn’t agree. It says,

‘We buried a little iron

Ball under that tree.

Let’s go get it.’

From: Eating The Honey of Words. New and Selected Poems by Robert Bly

Republished with permission of the author.

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