How far friends are! They forget you, most days. They have to, I know; but still, it’s lonely just being far and a friend. I put my hand out — this c… - William Stafford

A star hit in the hills behind our house up where the grass turns brown touching the sky. Meteors have hit the world before, but this was near, and since TV; few saw, but many felt the shock. The state of California owns that land (and out from shore three miles), and any stars that come will be roped off and viewed on week days 8 to 5. A guard who took the oath of loyalty and denied any police record told me this: “If you don’t have a police record yet you could take the oath and get a job if California should be hit by another star.” “I’d promise to be loyal to California and to guard any stars that hit it,” I said, “or any place three miles out from shore, unless the star was bigger than the state — in which case, I’d be loyal to it.” But he said no exceptions were allowed, and he leaned against the state-owned meteor so calm and puffed a cork-tip cigarette that I looked down and traced with my foot in the dust and thought again and said, “OK — any star.

To do it artificially, to try to hype myself into being a better writer by doggedly reading better literature, is also a mistake. I learn to use the language by the pleasures it gives me when I am able to swim in it or maneuver in it or interchange in it with the people around me.

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.