HEART THREAD 169 & 170

169.

I think I counted wrong I’m not the
only one

there is a wolf beside me and a
kingbird in the tree

beast and bird and me together can’t
know as much as one woman can

call us all to bed and see what
happens then

the Irish poets worked for pay the
pay was praise

fat salmon in the cooking pot poetry
is war without an enemy

when ‘faith’ replaces cult the polis
is dead

the Greeks never had to believe
anything, they knew, they did

as Jung at the end said “I don’t have
to believe, I know”

faith cuts us apart from one another

believe nothing and do everything,
and conversely

both ways make wise, help the wind
blow, paideia.

170.

I’m never shy of naming elements

the things that were here for us
before we knew

so those are the colors of my
spectrum

those are the blocks I fiddle with

rousing to you impatient to stroll

road in shadow past a donkey in a
field

a hill up ahead but everyone speaks
French

and none of this was here before the
hill

so I will go to my mothers below the
hill

and live among the ferly folk as
though I were a man

and listen to their practice of sun
and moon

and learn enough to come back in a
hundred years and all for you.

ROBERT
KELLY