William Stafford

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

If you don’t know the kind of person I am And I don’t know the kind of person you are A pattern that others made may prevail in the world And following the wrong

Traveling Through The Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer Dead on the edge of the Wilson River road. It is usually best to roll them into the canyon: That road is narrow; to swerve might

Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing

The light along the hills in the morning Comes down slowly, naming the trees White, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate. Notice what this poem is not doing. A house, a house,

Waking at 3 a. m

Even in the cave of the night when you Wake and are free and lonely, Neglected by others, discarded, loved only By what doesn’t matter even in that Big room no one can see,

Security

Tomorrow will have an island. Before night I always find it. Then on to the next island. These places hidden in the day separate And come forward if you beckon. But you have to

The Light By The Barn

The light by the barn that shines all night Pales at dawn when a little breeze comes. A little breeze comes breathing the fields From their sleep and waking the slow windmill. The slow

Returned To Say

When I face north a lost Cree On some new shore puts a moccasin down, Rock in the light and noon for seeing, He in a hurry and I beside him It will be

Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me Mistakes I have made. Ask me whether What I have done is my life. Others Have come in their slow way into My thought, and

This Life

With Kit, Age 7, at the Beach We would climb the highest dune, From there to gaze and come down: The ocean was performing; We contributed our climb. Waves leapfrogged and came Straight out

For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid

There is a country to cross you will Find in the corner of your eye, in The quick slip of your foot air far Down, a snap that might have caught. And maybe for

Objector

In line at lunch I cross my fork and spoon To ward off complicity the ordered life Our leaders have offered us. Thin as a knife, Our chance to live depends on such a

Atavism

1 Sometimes in the open you look up Where birds go by, or just nothing, And wait. A dim feeling comes You were like this once, there was air, And quiet; it was by

Remembering Mountain Men

I put my foot in cold water And hold it there: early mornings They had to wade through broken ice To find the traps in the deep channel With their hands, drag up the

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses Off they were still singing. They buzzed Like a locust on the coffee table and then Ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the Sunlight bent. I

Thinking For Berky

In the late night listening from bed I have joined the ambulance or the patrol Screaming toward some drama, the kind of end That Berky must have some day, if she isn’t dead. The

Across Kansas

My family slept those level miles But like a bell rung deep till dawn I drove down an aisle of sound, Nothing real but in the bell, Past the town where I was born.

Allegiances

It is time for all the heroes to go home If they have any, time for all of us common ones To locate ourselves by the real things We live by. Far to the

Graydigger's Home

Paw marks near one burrow show Graydigger At home, I bend low, from down there swivel My head, grasstop level the world Goes on forever, the mountains a bigger Burrow, their snow like last

Just Thinking

Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window. No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held For awhile. Some dove somewhere. Been on probation most of my life. And The rest of

Lit Instructor

Day after day up there beating my wings With all the softness truth requires I feel them shrug whenever I pause: They class my voice among tentative things, And they credit fact, force, battering.