For my young friends who are still afraid There is a country to cross you will find in the corner of your eye, in the quick slip of your foot — air … - William Stafford

"Our Story"

Remind me again — together we
trace our strange journey, find
each other, come on laughing.
Some time we’ll cross where life
ends. We’ll both look back
as far as forever, that first day.
I’ll touch you — a new world then.
Stars will move a different way.
We’ll both end. We’ll both begin.

Remind me again.

After Arguing Against The Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent

Whispering to each handhold, “I'll be back,”
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush
of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind — I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side
or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward. . . .

I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble
by luck into a little pocket out of
the wind and begin to beat on the stones
with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth
in silent laughter there in the dark — “Made it again!” Oh how I love this climb! — the whispering to stones, the drag, the weight
as your muscles crack and ease on, working
right. They are back there, discontent,
waiting to be driven forth. I pound
on the earth, riding the earth past the stars:
“Made it again! Made it again!

Glances

Two people meet. The sky turns winter,
quells whatever they would say.
Then, a periphery glance into danger -
and an avalanche already on its way.

They have been honest all their lives;
careful, calm, never in haste;
they didn't know what it is to meet.
Now they have met: the world is waste.

They find they are riding an avalanche
feeling at rest, all danger gone.
The present looks out of their eyes; they stand
calm and still on a speeding stone.