When I Am With You

When I Am With You
By Robert Bly


When I am with you, two notes of the sarod
Carry me into a place where I am not.
All the farms have disappeared into air.

Those wooden fence posts I loved as a boy-
I can see my father's face through their wood,
And through his face the sky as threshing ends.

It is such a blessing to hear that we will die.
Ten thousand barks become a hundred thousand;
I knew this friendship with myself couldn't last forever.

Touch the sarod's string once more, so that the finger
That touched my skin a moment ago
Can become a lightning bolt that closes the door.

Now I know why I keep hinting at the word you-
The sound of you carries me over the border.
We disappear the same way a baby is born.

Some foolish boy with my name has been trying
To peer all afternoon between the thick boards
Of the fence. Tell that boy it isn't time.