"Let my dreams while I’m wide-awake loose. Let me be drowned, baptized, in the light given me. Day comes around, night, fall, winter, spring, summer.… - 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.

You are a memory
too strong to leave this world...

The things you do not have to say make you rich.
Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk.
Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing.
And things you know before you hear them — those are you,
Those are why you are in the world.