The Way It Is Quotes

“If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.”
― William Edgar Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“This dream the world is having about itself
includes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,
a groove in the grass my father showed us all
one day while meadowlarks were trying to tell
something better about to happen.”
― William Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“There may be losses too great to understand
That rove after you and--faint and terrible--
rip unknown through your hand.”
― William Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“The earth says have a place, be what that place
requires; hear the sound the birds imply
and see as deep as ridges go behind
each other.”
― William Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“An Afternoon in the Stacks

Closing the book, I find I have left my head
inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open
their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound,
words adjusting themselves to their meaning.
Long passages open at successive pages. An echo,
continuous from the title onward, hums
behind me. From in here the world looms,
a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences
carved out when an author traveled and a reader
kept the way open. When this book ends
I will pull it inside-out like a sock
and throw it back in the library. But the rumor
of it will haunt all that follows in my life.
A candleflame in Tibet leans when I move.”
― William Edgar Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“So, the world happens twice--
once what we see it as;
second it legends itself
deep, the way it is.”
― William Edgar Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“Reluctant hero, drafted again each Fourth
of July, I'll bow and remember you. Who
shall we follow next? Who shall we kill
next time?”
― William Edgar Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“How far friends are! They forget you,
most days. They have to, I know; but still,
it’s lonely just being far and a friend.
I put my hand out—this chair, this table—
so near: touch, that’s how to live.
Call up a friend? All right, but the phone
itself is what loves you, warm on your ear,
on your hand. Or, you lift a pen
to write—it’s not that far person
but this familiar pen that comforts.
Near things: Friend, here’s my hand.

— William Stafford, “Friends,” The Way It Is. (Graywolf Press, 1998)”
― William Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed—or were killed—on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.”
― William Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems

“Living on the Plains”

That winter when this thought came-how the river
held still every midnight and flowed
backward a minute-we studied algebra
late in our room fixed up in the barn,
and I would feel the curved relation,
the rafters upside down, and the cows in their life
holding the earth round and ready
to meet itself again when morning came.

At breakfast while my mother stirred the cereal
she said, "You're studying too hard,"
and I would include her face and hands in my glance
and then look past my father's gaze as
he told again our great race through the stars
and how the world can't keep up with our dreams.”
― William Stafford, The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems