Bess
Ours are the streets where Bess first met her cancer.
She went to work every day past the secure houses.
At her job in the library she arranged better and better flowers, and when students asked for books her hand went out to help.
In the last year of her life she had to keep her friends from knowing how happy they were.
She listened while they complained about food or work or the weather.
And the great national events danced their grotesque, fake importance.
Always Pain moved where she moved.
She walked ahead; it came.
She hid; it found her.
No one ever served another so truly; no enemy ever meant so strong a hate.
It was almost as if there was no room left for her on earth.
But she remembered where joy used to live.
She straightened its flowers; she did not weep when she passed its houses; and when finally she pulled into a tiny corner and slipped from pain, her hand opened again, and the streets opened, and she wished all well.
William Stafford
Other author posts
Just Thinking
Got up on a cool morning Leaned out a window No cloud, no wind Air that flowers heldfor awhile
Accountability
Cold nights outside the taverns in Wyoming pickups and big semis lounge idling, letting their haunches twitch now and then in gusts of powder snow, their owners inside for hours, forgetting as well as they can the miles, the circling plains, the s...
The Well Rising
The well rising without sound, the spring on a hillside, the plowshare brimming through deep ground everywhere in the field— The sharp swallows in their swerve flaring and hesitating hunting for the final curve coming closer and closer— The swallo...
The Light By The Barn
The light by the barn that shines all nightpales at dawn when a little breeze comes A little breeze comes breathing the fieldsfrom their sleep and waking the slow windmill The slow windmill sings the long dayabout anguish and loss to the...
