Poem: William Stafford

Once upon a time, I was fortunate enough to attend a poet’s workshop with William Stafford, the long-time poet laureate of Oregon (Lawson Inada, my former teacher, is the new poet laureate). Stafford got up every morning of every day and wrote for at least an hour. That kind of practice over the span of a lifetime is a great lesson in making time to see the world, and then to see through it.

Ceremony

On the third finger of my left hand
under the bank of the Ninnescah
a muskrat whirled and bit to the bone.
The mangled hand made the water red.

That was something the ocean would remember:
I saw me in the current flowing through the land,
rolling, touching roots, the world incarnadined,
and the river richer by a kind of marriage.

While in the woods an owl started quavering
with drops like tears I raised my arm.
Under the bank a muskrat was trembling
with meaning my hand would wear forever.

In that river my blood flowed on.

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