Sometimes We Try Too Hard

THINGS TO THINK
Think in ways you've never thought before
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
larger than anything you've ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about
To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

by Robert Bly, (b. 1926)
American poet & activist
[When I was an undergraduate, I was lucky enough
to hear Bly give a poetry reading and play the dulcimer.]

The Full Hunters' Moon . . . . . . photographed from my front porch
THE DOOR
Go and open the door.
Maybe outside there's
a tree, or a wood,
a garden,
or a magic city.

Go and open the door.
Maybe a dog's rummaging,
maybe you'll see a face,
or an eye,
or a picture
of a picture.

Go and open the door.
If there's a fog
it will clear.

Go and open the door.
Even if there's only
the darkness ticking,
even if there's only
the hollow wind,
even if
nothing
is there,
go and open the door.

At least
there'll be
a draught.

by Miroslav Holub (1923 - 98)
Czech poet and immunologist
[Translated by George Theiner; in Holub's collection,
Intensive Care: Selected and New Poems ]

At least you'll see the moon . . .