The Call Away
by Robert Bly
A cold wind flows over the cornfields;
Fleets of blackbirds ride that ocean.
I want to be out of here, go out,
Outdoors, anywhere in wind.
My back against a shed wall, I settle
Down where no one can find me.
I stare out at the box-elder leaves
Moving frond-like in that mysterious water.
What is it that I want? Not money,
Not a large desk, not a house with ten rooms.
This is what I want to do: to sit here,
To take no part, to be called away by wind.
I want to go the new way, build a shack
With one door, sit against the door frame.
After twenty years, you will see on my face
The same expression you see in the grass.
"The Call Away” by Robert Bly from Like the New Moon, I Will Live My Life. © White Pine Press, 2015.
Artwork is like the wind. When we take it in, it calls us away from the daily dialogue of our lives, that pattering interior voice keeping us on schedule, organized, ready. Artwork provides a different homeostasis. That of the imagination that holds all of us, that each of us can access at will. The face of the grass, this simple expression that embraces us.
This is the real life of these physical objects artists create - invisible wind carrying us to our imaginative realms where we are free to shape energy, connect with the wider world; the vitality and agency of spirit in matter, matter in spirit.
