It is all right to be simply the way you have to be, among contradictory ridges in some crescendo of knowing. - William Stafford

Sending These Messages

Over these writings I bent my head.
Now you are considering them. If you
Turn away I will look up: a bridge
That was there will be gone.
For the rest of your life I will stand here,
Reaching across.

If these writings can bring a turn
Or an echo that touches you-maybe
A face, a slant, a tune- you will stop
Too and bend over them. When you
Look up, your thought will reach
Wherever I am.

I know it is strange. And there’s no measure
For this. The only connection we make
Is a like a twinge when sometimes they change
The beat in music, and we sprawl with it
And hear another world for a minute
That is almost there.

Keep a journal, and don't assume that your work has to accomplish anything worthy: artists and peace-workers are in it for the long haul, and not to be judged by immediate results.

Storm Warning

Something not the wind shakes along far
like a sky truck in low gear
over Oregon. Like the shore wind baying along through fir
but not now the wind, no, not really so,
it is a new weight and force
that begins to blow.

This winter they'll still call it wind and let it explore;
and when they talk it over next summer there by the shore,
along through the scrub and salal the new something will range.
In a hurry, late, it won't wait for the air.

In the fall again they'll remember, each of them, back to now.
They'll no longer call it wind, they'll want it all changed.
They'll want it all different then, but they won't know how.