Sound of the Ax: Aphorisms and Poems by William Stafford

The Gospel Is Whatever Happens

36 The Gospel Is Whatever Happens When we say, “Breath,” a feather starts to fly, to be itself. When we talk, truth is what we mean to say. A weather vane is courteous and accurate: the more it yields, the more wind lies where it points the way. 37 If you will grant me one vivid morning, I can chain it to me for fifty years. Children are near death—they remember it, they have just come from it. They look around at a world new. The old have forgotten. The world is theirs, life is a habit, they have had it long. The point of view creates the emotion and value, in any narrative—“See that one poor lion that doesn’t have any Christian.” To admire, one has to be limited enough. Anyone very old talking about the danger and violence of the world is a walking contradiction: there would be no survivors in the scene many people depict. The golden bough grows from your hand. Pascal said eloquence is vanity. 38 Can you be honest and not tell the truth? Yes— because you may not know the truth. What I put in rhymes with something I didn’t put in. My dreams are quick, like fish. They number through my recent days, not intense, not extreme, just fast and changing, as if I must tell over and over again all recent events till they have no shadow. Those who say Emily Dickinson lived a dull life . . . In a cold light the black doors of the locomotive wait. When I see it, the fire inside it flares. I have a place for anything offered—anything that meets me lives. It is snowing what I will know. And it is melting what I will forget. I am sociable because my poems are about lonely things. ...