Grandiosity

For so long, beginning when I was born and maybe back to the birth of the universe (how’s that for grandiose?), I (and others) have squelched the fires of my own grandiosity. “Be small! Be less! Be quiet!” And so on. But now, at this age, I am leaning in and being more — not more of what I am not, not more of someone else, but more of what is true that has been in me all along.

This poem speaks to that good grandiosity.

Poem in Three Parts by Robert Bly

I.

Oh, on an early morning I think I shall live forever. I am wrapped in my joyful flesh, as the grass is wrapped in its clouds of green.

II.

Rising from a bed, where I dreamt of long rides past castles and hot coals, the sun lies happily on my knees; I have suffered and survived the night, bathed in dark water, like any blade of grass.

III.

The strong leaves of the box-elder tree, plunging in the wind, call us to disappear into the wilds of the universe, where we shall sit at the foot of a plant, and live forever, like the dust.