William Stafford Deep Poems
- 1. Walking West
Anyone with quiet pace who
walks a gray road in the West
may hear a badger underground where
in deep flint another time is
... - 2. Bi-focal
Sometimes up out of this land
a legend begins to move.
Is it a coming near
of something under love?
... - 3. Assurance
You will never be alone, you hear so deep
a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums,
or the silence after lightening before it says
... - 4. Report To Crazy Horse
All the Sioux were defeated. Our clan
got poor, but a few got richer.
They fought two wars. I did not
take part. No one remembers your vision
... - 5. Remembering Mountain Men
I put my foot in cold water
and hold it there: early mornings
they had to wade through broken ice
to find the traps in the deep channel
... - 6. Across Kansas
My family slept those level miles
but like a bell rung deep till dawn
I drove down an aisle of sound,
nothing real but in the bell,
... - 7. The Well Rising
The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through deep ground
everywhere in the fieldâ??
... - 8. A Ritual To Read To Each Other
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
... - 9. In The Deep Channel
Setting a trotline after sundown
if we went far enough away in the night
sometimes up out of deep water
would come a secret-headed channel cat,
...
