The last acorn falls from the oak tree at dusk.
Sometimes shadows begin to cross the yard.
Sometimes hunger and thirst matter.  Night comes.

How many nightmares are packed into one night!
How many years are packed into one moment!
So many disasters are packed into one dream!

You know how often the right way is lost.
You know how many times the teaching is lost,
How many times the son goes back to prison.

You know how often the airplanes disappear,
And how many children fail to arrive at school,
And how quickly the newborn can die.

You and I know so much now.
Why should we pretend that we don't?
Look and see what's beneath your feet.

Robert Bly has published two major retrospectives in the past year, his Collected Poems (W. W. Norton) and a selection of literary essays Looking for Dragon Smoke (White Pine Press).  He has also recently published a group of new essays about fairy tales, More than True (Henry Holt).  He lives in Minneapolis with his wife Ruth.