Two Poems for Earth Day

Earth Dweller 

It was all the clods at once become

 precious; it was the barn, and the shed,

 and the windmill, my hands, the crack

 Arlie made in the ax handle: oh, let me stay

 here humbly, forgotten, to rejoice in it all;

 let the sun casually rise and set.

 If I have not found the right place,

 teach me; for, somewhere inside, the clods are

 vaulted mansions, lines through the barn sing

 for the saints forever, the shed and windmill

 rear so glorious the sun shudders like a gong.

 Now I know why people worship, carry around

 magic emblems, wake up talking dreams

 they teach to their children: the world speaks.

 The world speaks everything to us.

 It is our only friend.

 --William Stafford

The Epitaph Ending in And

 In the last storm, when hawks

 blast upward and a dove is

 driven into the grass, its broken wings

 a delicate design, the air between

 wracked thin where it stretched before,

 a clear spring bent close too often

 (that Earth should ever have such wings

 burnt on in blind color!), this will be

 good as an epitaph:

 Doves did not know where to fly, and

--William Stafford