Tuesday, February 26, 2008

For William Stafford

Henry Taylor (1995)

30 August 1993

Someone we love, old friend, has telephoned
to let me know you're gone—and so you are.
I touch the steady books; my mind casts back,
then forth, and says, as you said once, So long—
I look toward seeing you everywhere.


3 comments:

Big Frank Dickinson said...

William Stafford wrote two of my all time favorite poems. Here's one:
-----------------------
The Little Ways that encourage Good Fortune

Wisdom is having things right in you life
and knowing why.
If you do not have things right in your life
you will be overwhelmed:
you may be heroic, but you will not be wise.
If you have things right in your life
but do not know why,
you are just lucky, and you will not move
in the little ways that encourage good fortune.

The saddest are those not right in their lives
who are acting to make things right for others:
they act only from the self--
and that self will never be right:
no luck, no help, no wisdom.

-----------------------

Great insight, beautifully put.

Big Frank Dickinson

dan said...

Thanks Big Frank. I'll be posting that poem at some point down the line.

dan said...

"For William Stafford" is from The Poetry Anthology (1912-2002)
Joseph Parisi and Stephen Young