dark wood calm

dark wood calm
white tail walks
alone in the forest
he let his head down
low to the ground
feet crunch leaves,
no finesse
light beams stab
the eyes of the buck
he stares
drawn to it
braced
a voice
calls out in a language
he can't hear
the strange clicks and hums
of human tongues
and a shout
he leaps
ten feet in the air
white tail flashes behind him
gone, hidden
by the ivy and the oak.
he went close once
against his better judgement,
drawn by light,
stunned with beauty
he let
the curious appendages of men
caress his back
he ate.
his hope realized.
he sat
in the company of men
he sat
and the day was calm
a shot
he lept
hind legs buckled beneath him
working but only barely
they followed the trail of blood
for two miles
lost it in the stream
his breath came shallowly
for weeks
he stared into the darkness
leaned heavily
legs dangled over the precipice
and he panted
he didn't slide
weeks.
he walked through the pain
thirst dried his tongue
he walked to the edge of the water
leaned down deeply, drank
he limped.
months.
alone in the calm
in the fog laden field,
the cool morning

"Are you Mr. William Stafford?" "Yes, but...." Well, it was yesterday. Sunlight used to follow my hand. And that's when the strange siren-like sound flooded over the horizon and rushed through the streets of our town. That's when sunlight came from behind a rock and began to follow my hand. "It's for the best," my mother said—"Nothing can ever be wrong for anyone truly good." So later the sun settled back and the sound faded and was gone. All along the streets every house waited, white, blue, gray: trees were still trying to arch as far as they could. You can't tell when strange things with meaning will happen. I'm [still] here writing it down just the way it was. "You don't have to prove anything," my mother said. "Just be ready for what God sends." I listened and put my hand out in the sun again. It was all easy. Well, it was yesterday. And the sun came, Why It came.

—William Stafford

I think.

That thought is unworthy, though.
I
can't be sure.

It's somewhere... masked
by the sable space
inside me.

To you, void,
one word:
who?
I ask that with reservation.
Don't want the answer.
I have the suspicion
that you may be dangerous.

Worthy and true...
This thought...

More likely, it's what others
see as their great deep blue;
the thing that seethes and throbs,
that sea inside them
teeming with a trillion
planktons of thought;
with sharks,
with the rare blue whale,
the orca, cunning porpoises,
sea turtles

small in the expanse.
Drops in the great bucket.

Perhaps my sea
is at night;
new moon,
clouded sky,

only the distant candles of dead men
borne on the rafts
of the ship wrecked, abandoned,
cut through the darkness like stars.
They float lonely,
greeted only
by the sound of lapping waves.
One by one,
they lift up their last candle
and die out.

Candles burn to the hilt.
The matches are used up.
Daylight never comes.

No rain water.
Nothing to catch it in, anyway.

The sharks
circle silently beneath them.
They wait
on the big wave
the rogue wave
or the storm to
dump the dead
into the sea.

The wasteland is
as barren for them
as for the silenced.
The silenced;
they thirsted.

Yeah, I've been heavily considering just picking uip and leaving for someplace I've never been. I've got an itch, and it needs scratched, dammit. I'm fully prepared to let my life just fall apart, while I go live another one elsewhere. I'll only have marginally less than what I have right now on my return... If I return.

You should totally come. Dash it all. Chalk it up to youthful whimsy. Chalk it up to capitlizing on opportunities before you're tied down with real responsibilities (house payments, kids, marriage, etc). Chalk it up to spontaneity or whatever makes you feel free. Chalk it up to whatever lets you see the world with new eyes. What's it matter in the long run? You're only in your early to mid twenties once... This is primetime.

At least, that's a large part of my reasoning. I feel too young to be absorbed by the freakin rat race. I'm never going to make it through the glass ceiling anyways, so what the rush in getting there? I'm not jaded yet, dammit. I want to see the world naively while I can.

Adendum

And yet, I resist. I'm torn between identifying the resistance as reason or fear. Both are logical, both are probably accurate, but one of the two is more dominant.

Then there's the idealist in me, the part that screams: I want to do something that undeniably asserts my indivuiduality and vitality. Something that places me in a situation I've never been in so I can see myself for the first time again.

I've become too much a part of my surroundings, and unless I do something about it, I'll fade out. I'll wither and disappear. I'll become a gray and frail shadow of what I could be. When I'm old, I want to be entertained by my memories, not haunted by the vacccuum of routine. My fear is that I'll wake up one day and wonder why I even bothered.

If you were me:

You would feel a golden hue softly glowing, and warmth.
Flashing bright light, ice cold touches, pitch dark, confusion would be by you , but you would be the golden glow which slowly grows and dims.
You would smell cut grass and sawdust. You would sing sadly at times...
You would see oceans, mountains.
You would see waves of wheat looking weeds, golden in the sun like its healthy cousin.
You would feel alone in a beautiful place.
There would be moments of longing, and moments of peace.
There would be visions of snow falling from the night as you look up into it, the flakes lit bright as they come.
You would see horse gnawed fences and horses face to the ground, always just away.
You would hear nothing.
You would gaze into the sky often, only in brevity.
You would feel ability, and you would feel lack of it .
You would know that things wll be all right.
You would hesitate, but you would go.
You would feel.
You would feel love.
You would feel to cry sometimes, and you would feel to laugh.
You would feel wounds He suffered for you.
You would feel wounds you've caused others.
You would feel how much some love you, and wish you would feel how much you love them.
You would feel about little things and think little of big things and think deeply of all things.
You would think about glaciers and trees and life. You would love beauty.
You would be melancholy for its charm.
You would feel hope and it would come on the wings of a dove.
You would feel steel in your soul, covered by flesh and flesh inside it.

I let the iron rust on your machine.

I stood upon it, stamped my feet,
and watched water drip down
on your cool, calm world.

Only the clearest expression of my love, darling.
Only vivid honesty.

So large, sinking,
in a quiet place,
Sweetly filling holes...
sweetly
circuits
gently vibing
gently
in the holy dark
(vibing for me).

pretty metal eyes,
light behind them,
dark with depth,
will drip oil
when the rust
cankers them.

I tell you this
regretfully.
It was a beautiful piece
Of technology.

You walk each day, your bangs
in the breeze,
eyes turned skyward,
books in your arms;

I watch you, alone in the world
at the bus stop,
cold in morning gusts,
bundled tight
against groping old men of the snow.

You are an ember.
A quiet one, faithful, contributing
heat in the company of large coals.
You die alone.

What are you? Who?
The answer comes on the cusp of a whisper,
and is forgotten. You find
yourself again, in the same place.

You sit with your hands on your forehead,
Wrestling with being.

You are your own jury, you,
who sit at the cafeteria tables, teasing
each other and absorbing
each other. You
who walk sweetly in the path of duty, assured
of your place in the world. I see you. I know you.

You are no stranger to me, when you bury your face in a screen
or, when you look ahead, eyes steeled against me,
a potential source of pain or rejection or
disappointment.

I am your companion.