Silence in the Snowy Fields Quotes

“Taking the Hands"

Taking the hands of someone you love,
You see they are delicate cages…
Tiny birds are singing
In the secluded prairies
And in the deep valleys of the hand.”
― Robert Bly, Silence in the Snowy Fields

“Thinking of Wallace Stevens on the First Snowy Day in December”

This new snow seems to speak of virgins
With frail clothes made of gold,
Just as the old snow shall whisper
Of concierges in France.

The new dawn sings of beaches
Dazzling as sugar and clean as the clouds of Greece,
Just as the exhausted dusk shall sing
Of the waves on the western shore.

This new strength whispers of the darkness of death,
Of the frail skiff lost in the giant cave,
Just as in the boat nearing death you sang
Of feathers and white snow.”
― Robert Bly, Silence in the Snowy Fields

“With Pale Women in Maryland

With pale women in Maryland,
Passing the proud and tragic pastures,
And stupefied with love
And the stupendous burdens of the foreign trees,
As all before us lived, dazed
With overabundant love in the reach of the Chesapeake,
Past the tobacco warehouse, through our dark lives
Like those before, we move to the death we love
With pale women in Maryland.”
― Robert Bly, Silence in the Snowy Fields

“The human face shines as it speaks of things
Near itself, thoughts full of dreams.
The human face shines like a dark sky
As it speaks of those things that oppress the living”
― Robert Bly, Silence in the Snowy Fields