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Traveling through the Dark

By William E. Stafford

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car   
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;   
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,   
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;   
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;   
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,   
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

William Stafford, “Traveling through the Dark” from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1998 by William Stafford.  Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org.

Poet Bio

Black and white headshot of poet William E. Stafford.

Born in Kansas, Stafford lived with other conscientious objectors in work camps in Arkansas and California during the 1940's. He taught at Lewis and Clark College, Manchester College, and San Jose State College (now University). He also served as U.S. Information Agency lecturer in Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and held Oregon’s Poet Laureate position from 1975-93. Stafford was a prolific writer and authored numerous books of nonfiction and poetry as well as edited several collections of poetry and prose and contributed to translations and anthologies.

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A Desert Memory

By Bertrand N. O. Walker

Lonely, open, vast and free,
The dark'ning desert lies;
The wind sweeps o'er it fiercely,
And the yellow sand flies.
The tortuous trail is hidden,
Ere the sand-storm has passed
With all its wild, mad shriekings,
Borne shrilly on its blast.

 

Are they fiends or are they demons
That wail weirdly as they go,
Those hoarse and dismal cadences,
From out their depths of woe?
Will they linger and enfold
The lone trav'ler in their spell,

 

Weave ‘round him incantations,
Brewed and bro't forth from their hell?
Bewilder him and turn him
From the rugged, hidden trail,
Make him wander far and falter,
And trembling quail
At the desert and the loneliness
So fearful and so grim,
That to his fervid fancy,
Wraps in darkness only him?

 

The wind has spent its fierce wild wail,
         The dark storm-pall has shifted,
Forth on his sight the stars gleam pale
         In the purpling haze uplifted.

 

And down the steep trail, as he lists,
         He hears soft music stealing;
It trembling falls through filmy mists,
         From rock-walls faint echoes pealing.

 

Whence comes this mystic night-song
With its rhythm wild and free,
With is pleading and entreaty
Pouring forth upon the sea
Of darkness, vast and silent,
Like a tiny ray of hope
That oft-times comes to comfort
When in sorrow's depths we grope?

 

'Tis the An-gu, the Kat-ci-na,
'Tis the Hopi's song of prayer,

 

That in darkness wards off danger,
When 'tis breathed in the air;
Over desert, butte, and mesa,
It is borne out on the night,
Dispelling fear and danger,
Driving evil swift a-flight.

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Whose Mouth Do I Speak With

By Suzanne S. Rancourt

I can remember my father bringing home spruce gum.
He worked in the woods and filled his pockets
with golden chunks of pitch.
For his children
he provided this special sacrament
and we’d gather at this feet, around his legs,
bumping his lunchbox, and his empty thermos rattled inside.
Our skin would stick to Daddy's gluey clothing
and we’d smell like Mumma's Pine Sol.
We had no money for store bought gum
but that’s all right.
The spruce gum
was so close to chewing amber
as though in our mouths we held the eyes of Coyote
and how many other children had fathers
that placed on their innocent, anxious tongue
the blood of tree?

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  • Living
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More Poems About Living

Meanwhile

By Richard Siken

    Driving, dogs barking, how you get used to it, how you make
                            the new streets yours.
Trees outside the window and a big band sound that makes you feel like
     everything's okay,
  a feeling that lasts for one song maybe,
                 the parentheses all clicking shut behind you.
          The way we move through time and space, or only time.
The way it's night for many miles, and then suddenly
                                     it's not, it's breakfast
   and you're standing in the shower for over an hour,
                   holding the bar of soap up to the light.
I will keep watch. I will water the yard.
      Knot the tie and go to work. Unknot the tie and go to sleep.
                            I sleep. I dream. I make up things
   that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
                      The trees in wind, the streetlights on,
          the click and flash of cigarettes
being smoked on the lawn, and just a little kiss before we say goodnight.
      It spins like a wheel inside you: green yellow, green blue,
                                  green beautiful green.
   It's simple: it isn't over, it's just begun. It's green. It's still green.

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