My Virtual Reading Room

"In the White Sky"
William Stafford

Many things in the world have
already happened. You can
go back and tell about them.
They are part of what we
own as we speed along
through the white sky.

But many things in the world
haven't yet happened. You help
them by thinking and writing and acting.
Where they begin, you greet them
or stop them. You come along
and sustain the new things.

Once, in the white sky there was
a beginning, and I happened to notice
and almost glimpsed what to do.
But now I have come far
to here, and it is away back there.
Some days, I think about it.

---

Originally posted by exceptindreams at 1544: In the White Sky | William Stafford
On this day in...
2011: "Last-Minute Message for a Time Capsule" by Philip Appleman
2010: "Songs" by Langston Hughes
2009: "Bipolar Affective Disorder as Possible Adaptive Advantage" by Belle Waring
2008: Weekend, so no poem
2007: "Variations on the Word 'Sleep'" by Margaret Atwood

once upon a time we had/meadows here, and astonishing things,/swans and frogs and luna moths/and blue skies that could stagger your heart.