for Robert Bly, 1926–2021
All of my fathers are dead now.
If I have any further questions
there is no one to ask, no one
whose answer might matter to me.
But then it was you who taught me
that the deader a father is, the more
he lives inside us, and the more urgent
it becomes to build a room for him
in the house of the psyche,
lest we be ruled unknowingly by a monster
chained and howling in the basement
or a madman hiding in the attic,
eating dead spiders and dust.
Thanks to you, I built such a room
for my earthly father, and so reclaimed
the life and light and joy
he had stolen from his seven children.
Only then was I able to follow you
and all of my real fathers
through the open door in the soul
to the beauty of the word.
From you I also learned that the good father
contains a mother made of earth
and air and fire and water,
but that’s a story for another day,
perhaps another life. Right now I need
to revisit the room I built for you,
the one lined with books and lit
by a single round window facing the sun
and looking out on new snow and silence.