Sound of the Ax: Aphorisms and Poems by William Stafford

So Long

39 So Long At least at night, a streetlight is better than a star. And better good shoes on a long walk, than a good friend. Often in winter with my old cap I slip away into the gloom like a happy fish, at home with all I touch, at the level of love. No one can surface till far, far on, and all that we’ll have to love may be what’s near in the cold, even then. 40 “In wildness is the preservation of the world.” I say try to be tame; try to deny the lively turns of your thought: it lives wild anyway. Someone said language was invented so we could hide our thoughts. By now my thoughts are undiscoverable. Maybe silence would build character again. Getting older, you learn things—like why the old take little steps, why they move more slowly. And you learn something about the young: that your presence and participation in the world is not that important, and neither is theirs. Literature is words that merit being said again. If we are to have great poets, we must have audiences stupid enough—or brilliant enough—to follow with sympathy what a poem says. Anything said implies the kind of speaker who would say that. The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them— those are you, those are why you are in the world. 41 Creative writing is like doing a journey in which the traveling creates the goal. Prizes won’t save your soul. Talking about poetry is like talking about love—it’s a long way from doing it. A rejection slip: “This is too good for our readers.” If you count the leaves every day you will not grow many trees. Sinner that I am, couldn’t I cast even a little stone? No one has to tell you when a skunk arrives. Many things we think we are leaving are waiting for us. ...