On the Day I Was Born – July 8

During the last week of June, I had the amazing privilege of traveling to Portland, Oregon to visit the archives of the poet William Stafford at Lewis and Clark College as part of The Stafford Challenge Poetry Conference. I learned that people often ask to see the actual hand-written notes and poems that he wrote on the day they were born, and so I did the same.

Archive Haiku

Here is my best transcription of this page from his handwritten notes on the yellow pages in the photos that follow, below.

8 July

We thought leaves waited, without
winds. But their work flourished, then.
Lost as leaves are, in the fall, each
has all its guarantee: sun, air wind.
I take the fall.

Maybe someone found all this language
the world brings. Not a snake but a stream
through the air, or maybe little waves
nothing holds — anyone in this town fear
news the ants work on? News peeled off
the yellow car that left here this morning; news
trotted among sounds, under the bridge. I felt
the snake across my feet in the bus. And watched
the conductor act calm, as required by the state.
The fox I stole gnawed : inside my coat. Men
act so free: “No fox I stole has ever bitten
me.”

Forsaken liberal, I stamped the curb:
every cause I ever found

has had my vote. Now the animals
prefer their keepers to the kept or freed.

8 July 1966

Seasons mark the brain: a shaft
of spring has always hurt what winter
held. I see beyond the plate and
feel the foxes well. No angel, no
prophet rides with me, but animals.
Keepers are enough too and they live well;
To feed that fox I commit to walk through hell.

every day
Lizards and liberals both low and

adaptable, come back to their holes and love it there.

Such great song scared the birds;

they tiptoe – winged away

Pascal fell through a million windows,
a little kid too smart to be saved by
stupidity.

Though the handwriting is challenging to decipher and does leave some questions, I hang on the first two lines:

We thought leaves waited, without
winds. But their work flourished, then.

Yes, these periods of waiting often seem frustrating, challenging, and even pointless at times. Some days we feel we are merely holding on. But we wait, knowing our work is flourishing. Knowing that the best is yet to come.