When I met Robert Bly at Harvard
And we spoke of death and Jesus
And he dedicated a poem to me.
His was the renaissance bard’s attire
Red velvet vest, a sideways turned
Bard or clowns cap
He looked like he was secretly working
In the French courts of years ago.
But he also had this infectious twinkle in his eye.
He was a charmer.
And loved what he was reading-mostly his own poems
But also other’s. He read them both with the same fervor
And pitch of nearly glee.
He was a poets poet.
And I’d only met Ginsberg
And Kinnel and Philipe Levine up to that point.
He was more playful than them
And more performing his life as he lived it.
I’ve come to emulate that aspect of him.