Earth and Sky

Ray Bradbury published (according to the Internet search I just did) more than 30 books, 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays. There is simply no doubt that the man was a writer and knew what he was doing. I’ve read very little of his fiction and only a few poems, but more than once, I’ve savored his wisdom in Zen in the Art of Writing, and one of my favorite pieces of advice, out of all that he offers, is this: “Read poetry every day of your life.”

William Stafford seems to have gone a step further: he wrote poetry every day of his life (more or less). According to his son Kim in the Preface to Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by William Stafford, “With his habit of writing every day before dawn, he composed twenty thousand poems. Of these, four thousand were published in magazines. He had a cardboard box in his office labeled ‘Abandoned Poems.’ When I reached in a few days after my father died to take one at random, it was startling, imperfect, exploratory. I remembered his claim, ‘I would trade everything I have ever written for the next thing.’”

That fascinates me, especially since I can understand why he would feel that way. I’m not saying that I feel that way, but I’m also not saying that I’d never feel that way. What I am saying is that when I wake up in the mornings now, I open my eyes and feel excited that I get another day, another opportunity to write. This is new for me, and I am grateful for it.

Maybe because I just wrote in a comment on one of Celia Farber’s posts, “I don’t share much from others on my own Substack page (which is actually a big deal for me, because I used to compulsively hide behind the words of other),” I’m going to go ahead and share more words that are not my own. It’s one of William Stafford’s poems. I’ve not read even 50 of them yet, but I’ve already flagged 16. Here and now, I’ll settle for the first one I marked, a little surprised that it speaks to me as it does, but then again, like all good poetry, it shows me something new each time I turn to it.

Fifteen by William Stafford

South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, ticking over
slowly in the high grass. I was fifteen.

I admired all that pulsing gleam, the
shiny flanks, the demure headlights
fringed where it lay; I led it gently
to the road and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was fifteen.

We could find the end of a road, meet
the sky on out Seventeenth. I thought about
hills, and patting the handle got back a
confident opinion. On the bridge we indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was fifteen.

Thinking, back farther in the grass I found
the owner, just coming to, where he had flipped
over the rail. He had blood on his hand, was pale—
I helped him walk to his machine. He ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared away.

I stood there, fifteen.