The Night Abraham Called to the Stars

by Bly, Robert W.

• ISBN13: 9780060934446
• ISBN10: 0060934441
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

Robert Bly's new collection of poetry is made of forty-eight poems written in the intricate form called the ghazal, which is the central poetic form in Islam. The influence of Hafez and Rumi is clear, and yet the poems descend into the wealth of Western history, referring at times to Monet, Giordano Bruno,Emerson, St. Francis, Newton, and Chekhov, as well as to events in Bly's own life. The leaping between joy and "ruin" produces a poetry which makes him, as Kenneth Rexroth noted, "one of the leaders in a poetic revival which has returned American literature to the world community."

Table of Contents

The Night Abraham Called to the Stars	p. 1
The Wildebeest	p. 3
Jerez at Easter	p. 5
Giordano Bruno and the Muddy Footprint	p. 7
Moses' Cradle	p. 9
The Dead of Shiloh	p. 11
When We Became Lovers	p. 13
Monet's Haystacks	p. 15
What Kept Horace Alive	p. 17
The Love from Far Away	p. 19
Eudalia and Plato	p. 21
The Trap-Door	p. 23
Hannibal and Robespierre	p. 25
Walking Backward	p. 27
Wanting to Steal Time	p. 29
Calderon	p. 31
The Wagon and the Cliff	p. 33
Forgiving the Mailman	p. 35
The Way the Parrot Learns	p. 37
Rembrandt's Portrait of Titus with a Red Hat	p. 39
Nikos and His Donkey	p. 41
Pitzeem and the Mare	p. 43
The Country Roads	p. 45
Iseult and the Badger	p. 47
In Praise of Scholars	p. 49
The Fish in the Window	p. 51
Montserrat	p. 53
The French Generals	p. 55
The Battle at Ypres, 1915	p. 57
The Raft of Green Logs	p. 59
The Five Inns	p. 61
The Baal Shem and Francis Bacon	p. 63
Natchez Inns	p. 65
The Cabbages of Chekhov	p. 67
The Eel in the Cave	p. 69
Rembrandt's Etchings	p. 71
The Cardinal's Cry	p. 73
The Old St. Peter by Rembrandt	p. 75
Why Is It the Spark's Fault?	p. 77
Augustine on His Ship	p. 79
The Difficult Word	p. 81
Testifying to the Night	p. 83
The Storyteller's Way	p. 85
How This Wealth Came to Be	p. 87
Noah Watching the Rain	p. 89
Listening	p. 91
So Be It. Amen	p. 93
Dawn	p. 95
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

The Night Abraham Called to the Stars
Poems

The Night Abraham Called
to the Stars

Do you remember the night Abraham first called
To the stars? He cried to Saturn: "You are my Lord!"
How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star,

He cried, "You are my Lord!" How destroyed he was
When he watched them set. Friends, he is like us:
We take as our Lord the stars that go down.

We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars.
We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel
The dirt flying out from behind our hind claws.

And no one can convince us that mud is not
Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so.
We are ready to spend the rest of our life

Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields.
We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent.
We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night.

My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping,
Abandoned woman by night. Friend, tell me what to do,
Since I am a man in love with the setting stars.

The Night Abraham Called to the Stars
Poems. Copyright © by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems by Robert Bly
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.