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"Walking Backward"
Friends, there is only one joy and hundreds of sorrows.
We live down here in the Abode of Smelly Bones
Near the window's door, near Whitman's retarded brother.
Even though it's dawn on the rooftops, it's still night
Here, among cabbages and shoats, among
Glints from the wings of the mice-seeking owls.
Grown men are often strange. Savanarola
Was uncomfortable in a strawberry patch,
And Aristotle was uneasy beside the generous sea.
Something in mother's milk frightened both
The Italians and Greeks. A drop of milk
Creates a crown when it falls back into milk.
The Sumerians, pressing their stylus into wet clay,
Found their way to the sites of their great
White-walled cities by the smell of milk.
In our messy world, we all walk backward,
Each holding a potato that points to the grave.
The night of infidelity and longing goes on forever.
-- Robert Bly
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