Come down Canyon Creek trail on a summer afternoonthat one place where the valley floor opens out. You will seethe white butterflies. Because of the way shadowscome off those vertical rocks in the west, there areshafts of sunlight hitting the river and a deeplong purple gorge straight ahead. Put down your pack. Above, air sighs… Continue reading William Stafford
Remind me again—together wetrace our strange journey, findeach other, come on laughing.Some time we’ll cross where lifeends. We’ll both look backas far as forever, that first day.I’ll touch you—a new world then.Stars will move a different way.We’ll both end. We’ll both begin. Remind me again. – William Stafford, “Our Story,” Stories That Could Be True:… Continue reading William Stafford
Notice What This Poem Is Not Doing The light along the hills in the morningcomes down slowly, naming the treeswhite, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate. Notice what this poem is not doing. A house, a house, a barn, the oldquarry, where the river shrugs—how much of this place is yours? Notice what… Continue reading William Stafford
You Reading This, Be Ready Starting here, what do you want to remember?How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?What scent of old wood hovers, what softenedsound from outside fills the air? Will you ever bring a better gift for the worldthan the breathing respect that you carrywherever you go right now? Are you waitingfor time… Continue reading William Stafford
…the darkness around us is deep. – William Stafford, from “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. (Graywolf Press March 1st 1999)
Remembering When there was air, when you couldbreathe any day if you liked, and if youwanted to you could run. I used toclimb those hills back of town andfollow a gully so my eyes were at groundlevel and could look out through grass as thestemsbent in their tensile way, and see snowmountains follow along, the… Continue reading William Stafford
Scars They tell how it was, and how timecame along, and how it happenedagain and again. They tellthe slant life takes when it turnsand slashes your face as a friend. Any wound is real. In churcha woman lets the sun findher cheek, and we see the lesson:there are years in that book; there are sorrowsa… Continue reading William Stafford
there are sorrowsa choir can’t reach when they sing. — William Stafford, from “Scars,” The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. (Graywolf Press; New edition edition March 1, 1999)
Strange—things neglected begin to appealto a part inside us. It is called the soul.These times, it lives on less and less. — William Stafford, from “Noticing,” Poetry, October/November 1987
My family slept those level miles,but like a bell rung deep till dawnI 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 thatyou own your face more: what the lightstruck told a self; every rockdenied all the rest of the world.We… Continue reading William Stafford
The Vale of Soul-Making 