Elegy

Elegy


The responsible sound of the lawnmower
puts a net under the afternoon;
closing the refrigerator door
I hear a voice in the other room
that starts up color in every cell;
Presents like this, Father,
I got from you, and there are
hundreds more to tell.

One night, sound held in cornfield farms
drowned in August and melonflower
breath creeping in stealth--we walked
west where all the rest of the country
slept. I held that memory
in both my arms--how the families
there had saved the dogs;
in the night they waited to be fed.

At the edge of the dark there paled
a flash-- a train came on with
its soft tread that roused
itself with light and thundered
with dragging windows curving down
the earth's side, while
the cornstalks whispered;
All of us hungry creatures watched
until it was extinguished.

If only once in all those years
the right goodbye could have been said!
I hear you climbing up the snow,
a brown-clad wanderer on the road
with the usual crooked stick
and on the wrong side
of the mountains I can hear
the latches click.


William Stafford

Posted over on William Stafford Archives