Snowbanks North of the House Robert Bly

Discuss your favorite wilderness related books. Share your favorite poetry, quotes and folktales. Here's your chance to showcase your creative side!
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Hetchy
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Location: Santa Cruz Mountains Ben Lomond

Snowbanks North of the House Robert Bly

Post by Hetchy »

Robert Bly

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 sets down her rolling pin, and makes no more bread.
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, the hands touch nothing, and are safe.

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

The sea lifts and falls all night, the moon goes on through the
unattached heavens alone,
the toe of the shoe pivots in the dust,
the man in the black coat turns and goes away down the hill, no one
sees him again, nor knows why he came or why he turned
away and did not climb the hill.
You can make more money, but you can't make more time.
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Hetchy
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Posts: 269
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2009 8:51 pm
Experience: N/A
Location: Santa Cruz Mountains Ben Lomond

Re: Snowbanks North of the House Robert Bly

Post by Hetchy »

I feel I should reply to explain why I posted this poem.. actually I am replying to say I do not YET understand why this poem reminds me so much of the Sierra. Thanks in advance for indulging this rambling. It helps me in a way I cannot yet articulate.
This peom Is one I have never forgotten though can never truly commit to memory... Yet it's concepts are never very far away in my mind somehow.
On it's surface it represents the elements of my life that are unfinished. Dreams that are unfulfilled for lack of trying. Unfinished thoughts. That feeling that I am just about to reach some epiphany but turn away too soon.. and the bitterness of regret that follows.

Yet there is a physical expression of it as well:
I have always been fascinated (here in lies the Sierra connection) with the way seemingly boundless early season snow will give way to a singular flat dry stretch of granite. Sometimes just wide enough to sit upon. Small, yet with the power to inexplicably bring me to tears. That which passes for another rocky outcrop in summer becomes a magical fortress when snowbound.
Also there are those perfect little groves of trees that sprout from the granite itself.. "Elf groves" I call them. Like little oases amid the desert of stone. They hold a similar fascination for me.
Why THERE? In that spot, and no other. There are scientific reasonings to explain such things yet I can't help feeling there is something more to their placement... or possibly their placement triggers some recognition in myself.
To paraphrase Bly: There are groves of trees in England that upon entering make one want to burst into tears.. I get that on Solo trips. In fact, in some sense, this is what has brought me back to some of the same places year after year for two decades now.
There is something about those little places within places. Those silent groves of trees amid the granite, seemingly overlooked for their similarity to the surrounding landscape yet each one holds it's own mysterious cosmos inside.
This far and no farther... WHY?
You can make more money, but you can't make more time.
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