The following poem is written by Robert Bly. He is considered one of the greatest writers of our time, and it was a challenge to select one piece form his 60-plus years of writing. This piece is from the collection “Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems”, published in 1999 by Perennial.

Solitude Late at Night in the Woods

I
The body is like a November birch facing the full moon
And reaching into the cold heavens.
In these trees there is no ambition, no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire!

II
My last walk in the trees has come. At dawn
I must return to the trapped fields,
To the obedient earth.
The trees shall be reaching all the winter.

III
It is a joy to walk in the bare woods.
The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down, and touching the soaked earth,
Giving off the odor that partridges love.