Member of the Audience

(On Seeing Robert Bly at the Austin International Poetry Festival

April 6, 1997)

She dreamed the great poet would spy her heart

Work his art in eerie perfection

Perceive the leaks, repair the damage

Warrant his work like a responsible technician.

She longed to be pierced with those eyes,

Hear all the whys of the words inside

How they drive thoughts in arabesques

Until they breathe on their own.

She hoped to be seared in his sight,

Revealed in such light her rawness

The abandon's source in pale tendons,

Moving mechanically, for hire.

She wished to be savored as a muse,

Celebrated news like a young country,

Sighting of a rare bird and its nest,

The remembrance of old prayers.

She wanted to be a poem, read twice.

Vicki Goldsberry Colker

May 8, 1997