Two Poems for My Father by a Nice Guy from Hutchinson, Kansas

I've been writing about my father for months but I'm keeping that stuff close to my chest until it's closer to fine. Over the years my own poetry has been compared to many fine poets by many fine poets and I've been honored each and every time this has happened. If I had to chose one poet whose integrity of work I would most like to match, it would have to be Stafford. "Deceptively simple" is how it is commonly described. I believe the best thing ever said about him was just a few days after his death, when WS Merwin was here in IC reading at Shambaugh. He said William Stafford was one of those very rare things -- a male poet and a very decent person. Wow, I loved hearing that. My favorite poet WAS a fine human being. His works shines with it. My father's life shone with it too but like most of us it was sometimes obscured by storms, a rotating axis or the occasional eclipse.

Waiting for God

by William Stafford

This morning I breathed in. It had rained
early and the sycamore leaves tapped
a few drops that remained, while waving
the air's memory back and forth
over the lawn and into our open
window. Then I breathed out.

This deliberate day eased
past the calendar and waited. Patiently
the sun instructed the shadows how to move;
it held them, guided their gradual defining.
In the great quiet I carried my life on,
in again, out again.


Passing Along

People who walk by carry something so light
that no one can tell what it is. I know that burden,
lift it carefully from them and take it away

as they go on walking toward the sky.
Waiting here still I cherish whatever they find--miles of lupine ghosting the hills,
an accurate bird whetting its call

beyond the hedgerows where they disappear.
"All I ask," my mother said, "no matter the years
and the life we have, is that when you leave you turn and wave."
That was long ago. I like to remember -- I turn, I wave.