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 … - William Stafford

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

"Scars"

They tell how it was, and how time
came along, and how it happened
again and again. They tell
the slant life takes when it turns
and slashes your face as a friend.

Any wound is real. In church
a woman lets the sun find
her cheek, and we see the lesson:
there are years in that book; there are sorrows
a choir can't reach when they sing.

Rows of children lift their faces of promise,
places where the scars will be.

William Stafford, Americans’ Favorite Poems edited by Maggie Dietz and Robert Pinsky (W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition, November 1, 1999)

A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.

Above, air sighs the pines. It was this way
when Rome was clanging, when Troy was being built,
when campfires lighted caves. The white butterflies dance
by the thousands in the still sunshine. Suddenly, anything
could happen to you. Your soul pulls toward the canyon.