There’s a boy in you about three
Years old who hasn’t learned a thing for thirty
Thousand years. Sometimes it’s a girl.
This child has to make up its mind
How to save you from death.
He says things like: “Stay home. Avoid elevators. Eat only elk.”
You live with this child but you don’t know it.
You are in the office, yes, but live with this boy
At night. He’s uninformed, but he does want
To save your life. And he has. Because of this boy
You survived a lot. He’s got six big ideas.
Five don’t work. Right now he’s repeating them to you.
~Robert Bly
Thanks for posting this poem; it’s one of my favorites. BTW, the second stanza isn’t quite right: “has” and “says” should be “had” and “said,” and the second line should include the words “He says things like:”
Also, in line 7, there should be a comma after “child.”
(Forgive the nitpicking, but I was trained to be really exact about poems. I’m taking these corrections from the published versions in _Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems_ and _Morning Poems_, which are identical.)
Thanks for this. I have it in a different publication at home. Will make sure I check it when I get home in a week. No need to apologize, I’m all about accuracy with someone else’s work.
I’ve tried to find my copy of the poem. I am fairly certain I got it out of Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart which has Robert Bly as an editor and translator. It’s over 500 pages of poems. I can’t locate it within that book. Until I have physical proof in my hands that the poem is inaccurate, it shall stand as it is.
I’ve checked the indexes in my copy of Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, and the poem is not in that book. I’m pretty sure that Rag and Bone Shop was published before “One Source” was written, or at least published.
The only published sources I know of are the two I mentioned in my first comment.
Good luck in any case!