MenWeb -Robert Bly poem "Men's Work"

Men’s Work

by Robert Bly

This poem was first published in M.E.N. Magazine

This morning I’ve been thinking

How much I love the way some men

Keep working with their bills. You’ve been

Alone in the woods, heard that knocking sound

Far off. It’s one of them.

If you’re going to follow your beak

Back to childhood, then the food you’re looking for

Will be far beneath the bark. The beak is so

Close to the brain that some men will want to

Call the whole thing off.

Men who work like this sometimes live in acres

Of scrub trees. I like that cheerful sound.

"Not many people here." "Woodpecker

Friend, call me or I’ll call you. How’s

That wood?" "Hard but wormy."

Robert Bly

Written for John Lee

Hear RealAudio WebCasts of Robert Bly reading his own poems and poems from Rumi, Kabir and other poets.

Hear RealAudio WebCasts from a reading by Robert Bly and Thomas R. Smith, editor of the first United States anthology of Alden Nowlan's poems, When He Went to the Store for a Loaf of Bread.

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