A Piece Of Black Coal Found Under a Tree
By Robert Bly
This is a small piece of coal, black to the core; it's a one-inch by three-quarters inch bit of coal, ignored and ignominious. The surface gleams a little, like Iago's thoughts, or a peacock's foot in the dark. It's like the tooth of a corrupt judge that gleams as he opens his mouth.
There were farm mothers like this, self-satisfied after feeding, so many kids, some of whom will pass their twenty-first birthday in jail. Shall we say the coal is like a father who can't wait to burn himself up by being a bad boy, abandoning "all he was taught"? This bit of coal gives my lips the longing to kiss it ...
The chunk of coal iies on the table at this moment two feet from my lips and from my writing hand; it is as heavy as I am and as depressed; well, it is pressed out of old vegetation, we know that ... Eventually I'll come walking along while visiting this girls' school, looking for some object to write about with them, and I'll find it.
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