William Stafford Morning

This week, from today through Thursday, I am guest speaking at my old high school in the Advanced Placement Lit and Composition classes on poetry. Specifically, the poetry of Oregon's own William Stafford. Stafford's poetry has been such an inspiration for me ever since I became a reader and student of his work. He is a pillar of American writing and poetry, and I want these students to know and appreciate this man who wrote so much of his work just up the road. 

So this morning, after brushing up on my lesson for the day and rereading some Stafford poems, I stepped outside to get the morning paper. The sky was just lightening, and it was completely quiet - no traffic noise, no rooster crowing from our neighbors up the road, not even a coyote in the distance. But then I heard the high cries of geese up above the dark gray clouds - not the loud honking of the local Canada geese who stay through the summer. This was the high pitch of geese on a long, long flight. Geese flying at thousands of feet in the sky. Geese from the tundras and plains from the Great White North. And I thought, here is my William Stafford moment. Stafford moments are there for all of us if we choose to see them.

Just Thinking
by William Stafford


Got up on a cool morning. Leaned out a window.
No cloud, no wind. Air that flowers held
for a while. Some dove somewhere.


Been on probation most of my life. And
the rest of my life been condemned. So these moments
count for a lot - peace, you know.


Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one 
stirring, no plans. Just being there.


This is what the whole thing is about.