Snowbanks North of the House

By: Robert Bly

Photo: Henri Prestes

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

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

And the sea lifts and falls all night; the moon goes on
     through the unattached heavens alone.
And the toe of the shoe pivots
in the dust...
The man in the black coat turns, and goes back down the
     hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away, and
     did not climb the hill.

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You can find this poem in Robert Bly’s fantastic book of poems— Stealing Sugar from the Castle: Selected Poems, 1950–2011.