i want the whole wide world to pour down

friday evening.  drawing maps. looking out the windows while the day turns to night. somewhere on the western edge of the continent.

and also i fed myself this poem.

Assurance

You will never be alone, you hear so deep 
a sound when autumn comes. Yellow 
pulls across the hills and thrums, 
or in the silence after lightning before it says 
its names - and then the clouds' wide-mouthed 
apologies. You were aimed from birth: 
you will never be alone. Rain 
will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon, 
long aisles - you never heard so deep a sound, 
moss on rock, and years. You turn your head - 
that's what the silence meant: you're not alone. 
The whole wide world pours down. 
 

 

by William Stafford 

Comments

[donna, doni, lady d]

beautiful. xoDonna

[LJ]

I needed a Friday fix of "Dispatch from LA". Thanks for being there. Happy weekend!

[Susie LaFond]

love maps, how they can stretch you out across the world from wherever one might be at any given moment...maps are good for finding one's place as well as loosing one's self when one needs to...quietly escaping one direction or another, finding a secret hidey hole if even just for one day.

[Michelle LaPoint Rydell]

You find the best poems Mary Ann! Love it, and love your map too!

[connie rose]

Great poem. Stafford is your poet-in-residence, isn't he? Have a wonderful fall weekend in L.A.

[Suzy]

I love that--"I fed myself this poem." poetry--words--can be such sustenance.

[Chelsy]

Wow. So beautiful.

[Dawn N.]

love that poem.