“Everyone is born a poet - a person discovering the way words sound and work, caring and delighting in words. I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is: Why did other people stop?”

“The Way It IsThere’s a thread you follow. It goes amongthings that change. But it doesn’t change.People wonder about what you are pursuing.You have to explain about the thread.But it is hard for others to see.While you hold it you can’t get lost.Tragedies happen; people get hurtor die; and you suffer and get old.Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.You don’t ever let go of the thread.~ William Stafford ~”

“The earth says have a place, be what that placerequires; hear the sound the birds implyand see as deep as ridges go behindeach other.”

“If you don't know the kind of person I amand I don't know the kind of person you area pattern that others made may prevail in the worldand following the wrong god home we may miss our star.... And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,I call it cruel and maybe the root of all crueltyto know what occurs but not recognize the fact.”

“A Ritual to Read to Each OtherIf you don’t know the kind of person I amand I don’t know the kind of person you area pattern that others made may prevail in the worldand following the wrong god home we may miss our star.For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,a shrug that lets the fragile sequence breaksending with shouts the horrible errors of childhoodstorming out to play through the broken dyke.And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,I call it cruel and maybe the root of all crueltyto know what occurs but not recognize the fact.And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,a remote important region in all who talk:though we could fool each other, we should consider---lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.For it is important that awake people be awake,or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;the signals we give---yes or no, or maybe---should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.”

“An owl sound wandered along the road with me.I didn't hear it--I breathed it into my ears.”

“I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.”