It's strange that our love of Beauty should lead us to hell.
I caught one glimpse of you, and a moment later
My house and books were all thrown into the fire.
There is always terror near the Quiet garden,
There is a fatty dragon near the Beloved.
He has tons of gold at the back of his house.
The horses of sorrow are always restless, breaking
Out of fences, trampling the neighbors' garden.
The best poems are written by pirates in the moonlight.
When Monet glimpsed the haystack shining in fall dawn,
Knowing that despair and reason live in the same house,
He cried out: "I have loved God!" and he had.
I walked down the aisles of the grocery weeping.
Gleams of light came off my hair when I saw you
And I found myself instantly under the horses hooves.
My improvidence was to have been too hopeful.
My improvidence was not to see the fall.
I apologize to those in hell for my disturbances.
Robert Bly
New Republic, February 28, 2000
