One Home

One Home


Mine was a Midwest home—
you can keep your world.
Plain black hats rode the thoughts
that made our code.
We sang hymns in the house;
the roof was near God.


The light bulb that hung in the pantry
made a wan light,
but we could read by it
the names of preserves—
outside, the buffalo grass,
and the wind in the night.


A wildcat sprang at Grandpa
on the Fourth of July
when he was cutting plum bushes
for fuel, before Indians pulled
the West over the edge of the sky.


To anyone who looked at us we said,
“My friend”;
liking the cut of a thought,
we could say “Hello.”
(But plain black hats rode
the thoughts that made our code.)


The sun was over our town;
it was like a blade.
Kicking cottonwood leaves
we ran toward storms.
Wherever we looked
the land would hold us up.


William Stafford

Posted over on Poetry Foundation