When I Met My Muse by William Stafford
When I Met My Muse by William Stafford 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 felt the ceiling arch, and knew that nails up there took a new grip […]
Waking at 3 a.m. by William Stafford
Waking at 3 a.m. by William Stafford 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, you push with your eyes till forever comes in its twisted figure eight and lies […]
Traveling Through The Dark by William Stafford
Traveling Through The Dark by William Stafford 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 make more dead. By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car […]
Thinking For Berky by William Stafford
Thinking For Berky by William Stafford 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 wildest of all, her father and mother cruel, farming out there beyond the old stone […]
The Light By The Barn by William Stafford
The Light By The Barn by William Stafford 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 windmill sings the long day about anguish and loss to the chickens at […]
Security by William Stafford
Security by William Stafford 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 know they are there before they exist. Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island. […]
Returned To Say by William Stafford
Returned To Say by William Stafford 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 a long trip; he will be a new chief; we have drunk new water from […]
Remembering Mountain Men by William Stafford
Remembering Mountain Men by William Stafford 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 chains and the drowned beaver. The slow current of the life below tugs at me […]
Objector by William Stafford
Objector by William Stafford 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 sign while others talk and The Pentagon from the moon is bouncing exact commands: “Forget your faith; be […]
Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing by William Stafford
Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing by William Stafford 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, a barn, the old quarry, where the river shrugs– how much […]
Lit Instructor by William Stafford
Lit Instructor by William Stafford 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. I dance my way toward the family of knowing, embracing stray error as a long-lost boy […]
Just Thinking by William Stafford
Just Thinking by William Stafford 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 my life been condemned. So these moments count for a lot–peace, you know. Let the bucket […]
William Stafford – William Stafford
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Graydigger’s Home by William Stafford
Graydigger’s Home by William Stafford 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 winter. From a room inside the world even the strongest wind has a soft sound: a new […]
For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid by William Stafford
For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid by William Stafford 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 you, for me, a high, passing voice that finds its way by […]
Atavism by William Stafford
Atavism by William Stafford 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 a lake, or maybe a river you were alert as an otter and were suddenly born like […]
Ask Me by William Stafford
Ask Me by William Stafford 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 some have tried to help or to hurt: ask me what difference their strongest love or […]
Allegiances by William Stafford
Allegiances by William Stafford 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 north, or indeed in any direction, strange mountains and creatures have always lurked- elves, goblins, trolls, and […]
Across Kansas by William Stafford
Across Kansas by William Stafford 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. Once you cross a land like that you own your face more: what the light struck […]
A Ritual To Read To Each Other by William Stafford
A Ritual To Read To Each Other by William Stafford 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 god home we may miss our star. For there is many […]