"In our time there has been no poet who revived human hearts and spirits more convincingly than William Stafford." —Naomi Shihab Nye
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life.
—from "Ask Me"
In celebration of the poet's centennial, Ask Me collects one hundred of William Stafford's essential poems. As a conscientious objector during World War II, while assigned to Civilian Public Service camps Stafford began his daily writing practice, a lifelong early-morning ritual of witness. His poetry reveals the consequences of violence, the daily necessity of moral decisions, and the bounty of art. Selected and with a note by Kim Stafford, Ask Me presents the best from a profound and original American voice.
"In our time there has been no poet who revived human hearts and spirits more convincingly than William Stafford." —Naomi Shihab Nye
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life.
—from "Ask Me"
In celebration of the poet's centennial, Ask Me collects one hundred of William Stafford's essential poems. As a conscientious objector during World War II, while assigned to Civilian Public Service camps Stafford began his daily writing practice, a lifelong early-morning ritual of witness. His poetry reveals the consequences of violence, the daily necessity of moral decisions, and the bounty of art. Selected and with a note by Kim Stafford, Ask Me presents the best from a profound and original American voice.
Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford
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Overview
"In our time there has been no poet who revived human hearts and spirits more convincingly than William Stafford." —Naomi Shihab Nye
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life.
—from "Ask Me"
In celebration of the poet's centennial, Ask Me collects one hundred of William Stafford's essential poems. As a conscientious objector during World War II, while assigned to Civilian Public Service camps Stafford began his daily writing practice, a lifelong early-morning ritual of witness. His poetry reveals the consequences of violence, the daily necessity of moral decisions, and the bounty of art. Selected and with a note by Kim Stafford, Ask Me presents the best from a profound and original American voice.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781555973254 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Graywolf Press |
| Publication date: | 01/07/2014 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Sales rank: | 970,453 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Ask Me
100 Essential Poems
By William Stafford, Kim Stafford
Graywolf Press
Copyright © 2014 the Estate of William StaffordAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55597-664-4
CHAPTER 1
A Story That Could Be True
If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.
He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by —
you wonder at their calm.
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
"Who are you really, wanderer?" —
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
"Maybe I'm a king."
Fifteen
South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, ticking over
slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen.
I admired all that pulsing gleam, the
shiny flanks, the demure headlights
fringed where it lay; I led it gently
to the road and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen.
We could find the end of a road, meet
the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about
hills, and patting the handle got back a
confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen.
Thinking, back farther in the grass I found
the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped
over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale —
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared away.
I stood there, fifteen.
Vocation
This dream the world is having about itself
includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,
a groove in the grass my father showed us all
one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell
something better about to happen.
I dreamed the trace to the mountains, over the hills,
and there a girl who belonged wherever she was.
But then my mother called us back to the car:
she was afraid; she always blamed the place,
the time, anything my father planned.
Now both of my parents, the long line through the plain,
the meadowlarks, the sky, the world's whole dream
remain, and I hear him say while I stand between the two,
helpless, both of them part of me:
"Your job is to find what the world is trying to 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 some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
The Way It Is
There's a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.
A Message from the Wanderer
Today outside your prison I stand
and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen;
you have relatives outside. And there are
thousands of ways to escape.
Years ago I bent my skill to keep my
cell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies,
and shouted my plans to jailers;
but always new plans occurred to me,
or the new heavy locks bent hinges off,
or some stupid jailer would forget
and leave the keys.
Inside, I dreamed of constellations —
those feeding creatures outlined by stars,
their skeletons a darkness between jewels,
heroes that exist only where they are not.
Thus freedom always came nibbling my thought,
just as — often, in light, on the open hills — you can pass an antelope and not know
and look back, and then — even before you see —
there is something wrong about the grass.
And then you see.
That's the way everything in the world is waiting.
Now — these few more words, and then I'm
gone: Tell everyone just to remember
their names, and remind others, later, when we
find each other. Tell the little ones
to cry and then go to sleep, curled up
where they can. And if any of us get lost,
if any of us cannot come all the way —
remember: there will come a time when
all we have said and all we have hoped
will be all right.
There will be that form in the grass.
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 make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason —
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all — my only swerving —,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.
Mein Kampf
In those reaches of the night when your thoughts
burrow in, or at some stabbed interval
pinned by a recollection in daylight,
a better self begs its hands out to you:
That bitter tracery your life wove
looms forth, and the jagged times haggle
and excruciate your reaching palms again —
"A dull knife hurts most."
Old mistakes come calling: no life
happens just once. Whatever snags
even the edge of your days will abide.
You are a turtle with all the years on your back.
Your head sinks down into the mud.
You must bear it. You need a thick shell in that rain.
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 softened
sound from outside fills the air?
Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?
When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life —
What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?
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 know they are there before they exist.
Some time there will be a tomorrow without any island.
So far, I haven't let that happen, but after
I'm gone others may become faithless and careless.
Before them will tumble the wide unbroken sea,
and without any hope they will stare at the horizon.
So to you, Friend, I confide my secret:
to be a discoverer you hold close whatever
you find, and after a while you decide
what it is. Then, secure in where you have been,
you turn to the open sea and let go.
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 wildest of all, her father and mother cruel,
farming out there beyond the old stone quarry
where highschool lovers parked their lurching cars,
Berky learned to love in that dark school.
Early her face was turned away from home
toward any hardworking place; but still her soul,
with terrible things to do, was alive, looking out
for the rescue that — surely, some day — would have to come.
Windiest nights, Berky, I have thought for you,
and no matter how lucky I've been I've touched wood.
There are things not solved in our town though tomorrow came:
there are things time passing can never make come true.
We live in an occupied country, misunderstood;
justice will take us millions of intricate moves.
Sirens will hunt down Berky, you survivors in your beds
listening through the night, so far and good.
Why I Am Happy
Now has come, an easy time. I let it
roll. There is a lake somewhere
so blue and far nobody owns it.
A wind comes by and a willow listens
gracefully.
I hear all this, every summer. I laugh
and cry for every turn of the world,
its terribly cold, innocent spin.
That lake stays blue and free; it goes
on and on.
And I know where it is.
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 god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider —
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
Serving with Gideon
Now I remember: in our town the druggist
prescribed Coca-Cola mostly, in tapered
glasses to us, and to the elevator
man in a paper cup, so he could
drink it elsewhere because he was black.
And now I remember The Legion — gambling
in the back room, and no women but girls, old boys
who ran the town. They were generous,
to their sons or the sons of friends.
And of course I was almost one.
I remember winter light closing
its great blue fist slowly eastward
along the street, and the dark then, deep
as war, arched over a radio show
called the thirties in the great old U.S.A.
Look down, stars — I was almost
one of the boys. My mother was folding
her handkerchief; the library seethed and sparked;
right and wrong arced; and carefully
I walked with my cup toward the elevator man.
Easter Morning
Maybe someone comes to the door and says,
"Repent," and you say, "Come on in," and it's
Jesus. That's when all you ever did, or said,
or even thought, suddenly wakes up again and
sings out, "I'm still here," and you know it's true.
You just shiver alive and are left standing
there suddenly brought to account: saved.
Except, maybe that someone says, "I've got a deal
for you." And you listen, because that's how
you're trained — they told you, "Always hear both sides."
So then the slick voice can sell you anything, even
Hell, which is what you're getting by listening.
Well, what should you do? I'd say always go to
the door, yes, but keep the screen locked. Then,
while you hold the Bible in one hand, lean forward
and say carefully, "Jesus?"
Assurance
You will never be alone, you hear so deep
a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums,
or the silence after lightning before it says
its names — and then the clouds' wide-mouthed
apologies. You were aimed from birth:
you will never be alone. Rain
will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon,
long aisles — you never heard so deep a sound,
moss on rock, and years. You turn your head —
that's what the silence meant: you're not alone.
The whole wide world pours down.
Our Story
Remind me again — together we
trace our strange journey, find
each other, come on laughing.
Some time we'll cross where life
ends. We'll both look back
as 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.
The Little Ways That Encourage Good Fortune
Wisdom is having things right in your life
and knowing why.
If you do not have things right in your life
you will be overwhelmed:
you may be heroic, but you will not be wise.
If you have things right in your life
but do not know why,
you are just lucky, and you will not move
in the little ways that encourage good fortune.
The saddest are those not right in their lives
who are acting to make things right for others:
they act only from the self —
and that self will never be right:
no luck, no help, no wisdom.
A Gesture toward an Unfound Renaissance
There was the slow girl in art class,
less able to say where our lessons led: we
learned so fast she could not follow us.
But at the door each day I looked back
at her rich distress, knowing almost enough
to find a better art inside the lesson.
And then, late at night, when the whole town
was alone, the current below the rumbly bridge
at Main Street would go an extra swirl
and gurgle, once, by the pilings;
and at my desk at home, or when our house
opened above my bed toward the stars,
I would hear that one intended lonely sound,
the signature of the day, the ratchet of time
taking me a step toward here, now, and this
look back through the door that always closes.
Saint Matthew and All
Lorene — we thought she'd come home. But
it got late, and then days. Now
it has been years. Why shouldn't she,
if she wanted? I would: something comes
along, a sunny day, you start walking;
you meet a person who says, "Follow me,"
and things lead on.
Usually, it wouldn't happen, but sometimes
the neighbors notice your car is gone, the
patch of oil in the driveway, and it fades.
They forget.
In the Bible it happened — fishermen, Levites.
They just went away and kept going. Thomas,
away off in India, never came back.
But Lorene — it was a stranger maybe, and he
said, "Your life, I need it." And nobody else did.
A Dedication
We stood by the library. It was an August night.
Priests and sisters of hundreds of unsaid creeds
passed us going their separate pondered roads.
We watched them cross under the corner light.
Freights on the edge of town were carrying away
flatcars of steel to be made into secret guns;
we knew, being human, that they were enemy guns,
and we were somehow vowed to poverty.
No one stopped or looked long or held out a hand.
They were following orders received from hour to hour,
so many signals, all strange, from a foreign power:
But tomorrow, you whispered, peace may flow over the land.
At that corner in a flash of lightning we two stood;
that glimpse we had will stare through the dark forever:
on the poorest roads we would be walkers and beggars,
toward some deathless meeting involving a crust of bread.
Learning
A piccolo played, then a drum.
Feet began to come — a part
of the music. Here came a horse,
clippety clop, away.
My mother said, "Don't run —
the army is after someone
other than us. If you stay
you'll learn our enemy."
Then he came, the speaker. He stood
in the square. He told us who
to hate. I watched my mother's face,
its quiet. "That's him," she said.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ask Me by William Stafford, Kim Stafford. Copyright © 2014 the Estate of William Stafford. Excerpted by permission of Graywolf Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface by Kim Stafford,A Story That Could Be True,
Fifteen,
Vocation,
Ask Me,
The Way It Is,
A Message from the Wanderer,
Traveling through the Dark,
Mein Kampf,
You Reading This, Be Ready,
Security,
Thinking for Berky,
Why I Am Happy,
A Ritual to Read to Each Other,
Serving with Gideon,
Easter Morning,
Assurance,
Our Story,
The Little Ways That Encourage Good Fortune,
A Gesture toward an Unfound Renaissance,
Saint Matthew and All,
A Dedication,
Learning,
Objector,
At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border,
For the Unknown Enemy,
At the Bomb Testing Site,
These Mornings,
Distractions,
Watching the Jet Planes Dive,
Poetry,
The Star in the Hills,
Peace Walk,
Explaining the Big One,
Entering History,
"Shall we have that singing ...",
In the Night Desert,
The Concealment: Ishi, the Last Wild Indian,
Bess,
American Gothic,
Report to Crazy Horse,
For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid,
Listening,
Clash,
Our Kind,
Aunt Mabel,
At the Grave of My Brother: Bomber Pilot,
A Catechism,
Circle of Breath,
A Memorial: Son Bret,
A Family Turn,
Ruby Was Her Name,
With Kit, Age 7, at the Beach,
Passing Remark,
Once in the 40s,
One Home,
Prairie Town,
Ceremony,
The Farm on the Great Plains,
One Evening,
In the Oregon Country,
At the Klamath Berry Festival,
Looking for Gold,
An Oregon Message,
Earth Dweller,
Spirit of Place: Great Blue Heron,
The Fish Counter at Bonneville,
Witness,
Bi-Focal,
Across Kansas,
Malheur before Dawn,
Starting with Little Things,
Mr. Conscience,
The Well Rising,
Climbing along the River,
Roll Call,
Things I Learned Last Week,
Ode to Garlic,
Reading with Little Sister: A Recollection,
Just Thinking,
Any Morning,
First Grade,
Freedom,
When I Met My Muse,
You and Art,
The Animal That Drank Up Sound,
Keeping a Journal,
Indian Caves in the Dry Country,
Burning a Book,
Growing Up,
A Farewell, Age Ten,
Artist, Come Home,
An Archival Print,
Why I Am a Poet,
Run before Dawn,
The Last Class,
Looking across the River,
Father and Son,
Choosing a Dog,
"Are you Mr. William Stafford?",
Smoke,