Quote

Every breath taken in by the man Who loves, and the woman who loves, Goes to fill the water tank Where the spirit horses drink.

Robert Bly

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Robert Bly
Age: 97
Born: 1926
Born: December 23
Linguist
Poet
Translator
Writer
Madison
Minnesota
Robert Bly
Robert Elwood Bly
Goes
Tanks
Taken
Horses
Water
Fill
Woman
Breath
Spirit
Breaths
Every
Loves
Men
Horse
Drink
Tank

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One man wrote me, saying, 'You know who you are? You're nothing but a Captain Bly pissing up a drainpipe!'
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All of Japan once a year will get up on their rooftops, because that's the night that the shepherd boy from one side of the Milky Way gets to meet the weaver girl on the other side of the Milky Way. They all get up on their roofs and watch that night. So they long for 365 days and then on the 365th night, they see the result of that longing.
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In some Mayan villages they even have a stage beyond the elder that they call the Echo Person. They say that when an Echo Person, whether a man or a woman, speaks, the words echo both in this world and in the other world. That's why they are called Echo People.
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It's good to have poems that begin with tea and end with God.
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There is no hierarchy in Japanese Buddhist poetry.
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If we call the young ones, say 10 to 30 years old, 'siblings,' we can see they tend to be naturally ecological. They regard whales and owls as siblings too. That's a great advance.
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It’s all right if you grow your wings on the way down.
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Those of us who make up poems have agreed not to say what the pain is.
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What you feel in Japanese poetry is always entirely longing.
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But our gusty emotions say to me that we have / Tasted heaven many times: these delicacies / Are left over from some larger party.
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Tragedies are about the depths that call up to certain men and insist that they descend.
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And why shouldn't the miraculous, / Caught on this earth, visit / The old man alone in his hut?
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Sociological prose can tell you everything, but it can't point out the grief.
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The best presenters have conversations with their audiences.
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We did not come to remain whole. We came to lose our leaves like the trees, Trees that start again.
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I want nothing from You but to see You.
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If a man, cautious, hides his limp, Somebody has to limp it! Things do it the surroundings limp. House walls get scars, the car breaks down matter, in drudgery, takes it up.
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I knew this friendship with myself couldn’t last forever.
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We know that the adult in a certain sense has an attitude toward life exactly opposite to the attitude of commercials. Commercials say, 'Your longing for 3.2 beer is very important. Your longing for skin that doesn't have any wrinkles in it, that's very, very, very important.' The adult says, 'No, I've got wrinkles, so what?'
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Some people can't go into church any longer to feel this longing, but they still have the longing, so what do they do? Well, one thing you can do is what people do in prison they turn to poetry.
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