"The Call Away" by Robert Bly

"The Prairie Waits for Rain" by Dave Goldman

A cold wind flows over the cornfields;

Fleets of blackbirds ride that ocean.

I want to be out of here, go out,

Outdoors, anywhere in wind.

My back against a shed wall, I settle

Down where no one can find me.

I stare out at the box-elder leaves

Moving frond-like in that mysterious water.

What is it that I want? Not money,

Not a large desk, not a house with ten rooms.

This is what I want to do: to sit here,

To take no part, to be called away by wind.

I want to go the new way, build a shack

With one door, sit against the door frame.

After twenty years, you will see on my face

The same expression you see in the grass.

"The Call Away" by Robert Bly from Like the New Moon, I Will Live My Life. © White Pine Press, 2015.

"Driving Toward the Lac Qui Parle River" by Robert Bly

Moonlit Landscape, by Washington Allston, 1819, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

I
I am driving; it is dusk; Minnesota.
The stubble field catches the last growth of sun.
The soybeans are breathing on all sides.
Old men are sitting before their houses on car seats
In the small towns. I am happy,
The moon rising above the turkey sheds.

II
The small world of the car
Plunges through the deep fields of the night,
On the road from Willmar to Milan.
This solitude covered with iron
Moves through the fields of night
Penetrated by the noise of crickets.

III
Nearly to Milan, suddenly a small bridge,
And water kneeling in the moonlight.
In small towns the houses are built right on the ground;
The lamplight falls on all fours on the grass.
When I reach the river, the full moon covers it.
A few people are talking, low, in a boat.

From Silence in the Snowy Fields. © Robert Bly, 1962.