Poetry Its door opens near. It’s a shrine by the road, it’s a flower in the parking lot of The Pentagon, it says, “Look around, listen. Feel the air.… - William Stafford

"Living on the Plains”

That winter when this thought came-how the river
held still every midnight and flowed
backward a minute-we studied algebra
late in our room fixed up in the barn,
and I would feel the curved relation,
the rafters upside down, and the cows in their life
holding the earth round and ready
to meet itself again when morning came.

At breakfast while my mother stirred the cereal
she said, "You're studying too hard,"
and I would include her face and hands in my glance
and then look past my father's gaze as
he told again our great race through the stars
and how the world can't keep up with our dreams."

Readers should not be loaded with more information and guidance than a lively mind needs — puzzlement can be accepted, but insulting clarity is fatal to a poem.

Can injustice one way be corrected without the interim reaction that tries to impose injustice the other way?