You will never be alone, you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes. - William Stafford

For my young friends who are still 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 you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.

"A Walk in the Country"

To walk anywhere in the world, to live
now, to speak, to breathe a harmless
breath: what snowflake, even, may try
today so calm a life,
so mild a death?

Out in the country once,
walking the hollow night,
I felt a burden of silver come:
my back had caught moonlight
pouring through the trees like money.

That walk was late, though.
Late, I gently came into town,
and a terrible thing had happened:
the world, wide, unbearably bright,
had leaped on me. I carried mountains.

Though there was much I knew, though
kind people turned away,
I walked there ashamed — into that still picture
to bring my fear and pain.

By dawn I felt all right;
my hair was covered with dew;
the light was bearable; the air
came still and cool.
And God had come back there
to carry the world again.

Since then, while over the world
the wind appeals events,
and people contend like fools,
like a stubborn tumbleweed I hold,
hold where I live, and look into every face:

Oh friends, where can one find a partner
for the long dance over the fields?

"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."