Sound of the Ax: Aphorisms and Poems by William Stafford

Tuned In Late One Night

78 Tuned In Late One Night Listen—this is a faint station left alive in the vast universe. I was left here to tell you a message designed for your instruction or comfort, but now that my world is gone I crave expression pure as all the space around me: I want to tell what is. . . . Remember?—we learned that still-face way, to wait in election or meeting and then to choose the side that wins, a leader that lasted, a president that stayed in? But some of us knew even then it was better to lose if that was the way our chosen side came out, in truth, at the end. It’s like this, truth is: it’s looking out while everything happens; being in a place of your own, between your ears; and any person you face will get the full encounter of your self. When you hear any news you ought to register delight or pain depending on where you really live. Now I am fading, with this ambition: to read with my brights full on, to write on a clear glass typewriter, to listen with sympathy, to speak like a child. 79 Always do your writing in the wilderness. Lostness is a function of your assumptions about where you belong. Harness all the sled dogs. It is not the sound of the ax that cuts the tree. Everyone is a conscientious objector to something. A box arrived. It said, “Any side up.” Most people live lives that are too significant. On the coast you have one main neighbor. You like the moon but you wouldn’t want it in your house or any bigger. 80 Frogs met all night but didn’t settle anything. Day, night, storms, the seasons—only these need happen. All else is clutter. At first it’s not much of a river. If you live by truth, any thought belongs. Strange, the best part of a room is a window. My belief is what my whole life says. ...