"Thoughts that go so far."

The following poem will stop you in your tracks. Robert Bly's poem resonantes with images of actions cutoff, incomplete . . . with no explanation of why: "Thoughts that go so far." A beautiful and frightful poem. As Rilke wrote: "Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror."

Snowbanks North of the House

Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six feet from
the house . . .
Thoughts that go so far.
The boy gets out of high school and reads no more books;
the son stops calling home.
The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no more
bread.
And the wife looks at her husband one night at a party and
loves him no more.
The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls leaving the
church.
It will not come closer-
the one inside moves back, and the hands touch nothing,
and are safe.

And the father grieves for his son, and will not leave the
room where the coffin stands;
he turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

And the sea lifts and falls all night; the moon goes on
through the unattached heavens alone.
And the toe of the shoe pivots
in the dust. . . .
The man in the black coat turns, and goes back down the hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away, and
did not climb the hill.

--- Robert Bly