Currently reading the most important book I’ve read in years, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. It’s a book for men, about fatherhood, depression, wildness, excess — told in poems, explained by one of the greatest writers working today, Robert Bly with a couple other contributors I’m giving the short-shrift. An excerpt I love:
A man often follows on an ascending arc, headed toward brilliance, inner power, authority, leadership in community, and that arc is very beautiful. But many ancient stories declare that in the midst of a man’s beautiful ascending arc, the time will come naturally when he will find himself falling; he will find himself on the road of ashes, and discover at night that he is holding the ashy hand of the Lord of Death or the Lord of Divorce. He will find himself noticing the tears inside brooms or old boards; noticing how much grief the whales carry in their skulls. He realizes how much he has already lost in the reasonable way he chose to live, and how much he could easily lose in the next week.
