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 w… - William Stafford

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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.