Photograph by Samuel W. Johnson
An Oregon Message
When we first moved here, pulled
the trees in around us, curled
our backs to the wind, no one
had ever hit the moon—no one.
Now our trees are safer than the stars,
and only other people's neglect
is our precious and abiding shell,
pierced by meteors, radar,
and the telephone.
From our snug place we shout
religiously for attention,
in order to hide:
only silence or evasion will bring
dangerous notice, the hovering hawk
of the state, or the sudden quiet stare
and fatal estimate of
an alerted neighbor.
This message we smuggle out in
its plain cover, to be opened
quietly: Friends everywhere—
we are alive! Those moon rockets
have missed millions of secret
places! Best wishes.
Burn this.
William Stafford
Posted over on Poetry Foundation
William Stafford, “An Oregon Message” from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems.
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