Monday, January 2, 2012

Whether what I have done is my life


"Some time when the river is ice ask me

mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life."  William Stafford


I really like those lines, so much that I'm using them to introduce a chapter where I muse a bit about the search for vocation.  Here's the complete poem:


Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

William Stafford

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