B.C. The seed that met water spoke a little name. (Great sunflowers were lording the air that day; This was before Jesus, before Rome; that other a… - William Stafford

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.

"The Gift

Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.

It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given.
You get killed now and then, violated
in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.)
You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait
and pray, and maybe good things come-maybe
the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more.
You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.

It's a balance, the taking and passing along,
the composting of where you've been and how people
and weather treated you. It's a country where
you already are, bringing where you have been.
Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours.

Malheur Before Dawn
An owl sound wandered along the road with me.
I didn’t hear it- I breathed it into my ears.

Little ones at first, the stars retired, leaving
Polished little circles on the sky for a while.

Then the sun began to shout from below the horizon.
Throngs of birds campaigned, their music a tent of song.

From across a pond, out of the mist,
One drake made a V and said its name.

Some vast animal of air began to rouse
From the reeds and lean outward.

Frogs discovered their national anthem again.
I didn’t know a ditch could hold so much joy.

So magic a time it was that I was both brave and afraid.
Some day like this might save the world.