Poetry Day

I found a link to a new site recently, the William Stafford Archives. There are video, audio and written versions of poems. It's a work in progress and they will be adding more information so it's worth checking periodically for updates. There is a short essay on the site by Kim Stafford that begins:

In conversations at home, my father had a habit of abruptly increasing the voltage by announcing, "Let's talk recklessly!" This meant tiptoeing in polite banter was done. We were to dig deep, gossip freely about our uncertainties and strange beliefs, and lean forward and tumble into the liveliest possible interchange.

I really like that idea: talking recklessly. It's something I don't think many of us do very often. Mostly, it seems, we engage in polite banter. There is only a small handful of people who I'd say I talked recklessly with. And that's kind of a shame so I've decided to work on expanding the number. All this made me think of one of my favorite poems by William Stafford which I thought I'd share.


A Ritual To Read To Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.