Those Being Eaten by America

Robert Bly

The cry of those being eaten by America,
Others pale and soft being stored for later eating

And Jefferson
Who saw hope in new oats

The wild houses go on
With long hair growing from between their toes
The feet at night get up
And run down the long white roads by themselves

The dams reverse themselves and want to go stand alone in the desert

Ministers who dive headfirst into the earth
The pale flesh
Spreading guiltily into new literatures

That is why these poems are so sad
The long dead running over the fields

The mass sinking down
The light in children’s faces fading at six or seven

The world will soon break up into small colonies of the saved

___________________________________________________________________________________

Source. About the poet. The illustration shows a section of The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hell, 1504, Hieronymus Bosch, in the Prado.