Upon opening The Way It Is after a week that convinces me that this dark marathon is much longer than I expected, even in my most hardened moments
Wake up my soul,
I ask, please.
It lies sleeping somewhere
under a pile of emails,
Congressional edicts,
cruel comprehensions,
that I have been picking through
all week.
And now that it is Saturday,
I am quite sure
it will never see the light of day again.
Fetch it for me, will you?
Rouse it up.
Help it fly back to me.
Then you and I
can still have this —
small, true,
but unending, generous.
2 responses to “To William Stafford”
My favorite thing here is the discovery halfway through that the soul has wings and will be able to fly once it awakes. 🙂 And the hopeful description of “this” at the close.
Thank you! Yes. I felt so exhausted and constrained and as I reached for book, I realized I was asking for a whole lot of help. Are wings ever not necessary?