a message from space

Everything that happens is the message:

you read an event and be one and wait,

like breasting a wave, all the while knowing

by living, though not knowing how to live.

Or workers built an antenna -- a dish

aimed at stars -- and they themselves are its message,

crawling in and out, being worlds that loom,

dot-dash, and sirens, and sustaining beams.

And sometimes no one is calling but we turn up

eye and ear -- suddenly we fall into

sound before it begins, the breathing

so still it waits there under the breath --

And then the green of leaves calls out, hills

where they wait or turn, clouds in their frenzied

stillness unfolding their careful words:

"Everything counts. The message is the world."

~ William Stafford

from The Worth of Local Things

adrift

.

Let my dreams while I'm wide-awake
loose. Let me be drowned, baptized,
in the light given me. Day comes around,
night, fall, winter, spring,
summer. Leaves over head, under foot.
Waves arrive, buffets from friends
offended, enemies. Let it all come:
this is my way, this is the canoe I'm in.



~ William Stafford