People Like Us

.

.

There are more like us. All over the world

There are confused people, who can't remember

The name of their dog when they wake up, and people

Who love God but can't remember where

.

He was when they went to sleep.  It's

All right.  The world cleanses itself this way.

A wrong number occurs to you in the middle

Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

.

To save the house.  And the second-story man

Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,

And he's lonely, and they talk, and the thief

Goes back to college.  Even in graduate school,

.

You can wander into the wrong classroom,

And hear great poems lovingly spoken

By the wrong professor.  And you find your soul,

And greatness has a defender, and even in death

you're safe.

.

Robert Bly

for James Wright

.