Love Poem

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As evidenced by many of the poems collected in Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962), Robert Bly looked toward the landscapes of Minnesota and often saw:

Cornfields, cornstalks

Catholic churches

Box-elder trees, box-elder bugs

Prairie grasses

Chickens' eyes

Dust

Barns

Norwegian immigrants

Alfalfa fields

Crickets

Turkey sheds

Telephone poles

Corn stubble

Perhaps not the most romantic list.

And yet, the verses he called "Love Poem" go like this:

     "When we are in love, we love the grass,

     And the barns, and the light poles,

     And the small mainstreets abandoned all night." 

And to me, this seems exactly, simply, accurate. When we love—whether a person or a place—there is possibility for beauty in everything.