William Stafford

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 ...

When I face north a lost Creeon some new shore puts a moccasin down,rock in the light and noon for seeing,he in a hurry and I beside
It will be a long trip; he will be a new chief;we have drunk new water from an unnamed stream;under little da...

Aristotle was a little man with eyes like a lizard, and he found a streak down the midst of things, a smooth place for his feet much more important than the carved handles on the coffins of the great
He said you should put your hand out at th...

The light along the hills in the morningcomes down slowly, naming the treeswhite, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate
Notice what this poem is not doing
A house, a house, a barn, the oldquarry, where the river shrugs—how much...

With Kit,
Age 7, at the
We would climb the highest dune, from there to gaze and come down: the ocean was performing; we contributed our climb
Waves leapfrogged and came straight out of the storm

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...

Mine was a Midwest home—you can keep your world
Plain black hats rode the thoughts that made our code
We sang hymns in the house; the roof was near God
The light bulb that hung in the pantry made a wan light, but we could read by it...