Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
Wind Gift
For you, something not put
even in prayer.
Like broad wings that swim thick
under your fall
And won’t let you drop
through the air.
Or the same thing under the sea
where your boat goes.
A teeming companionship
of life too full for a hollow
—the way a canyon’s alive
when it snows.
That’s the way, under and over
and all around—
Miraculous out of the void
All for you—
so wild the eye roves
wing, fin, flake
nor touches the ground.
William Stafford (1914–1993) was the author of many widely admired volumes of poetry and prose. He won the National Book Award for his poetry collection Traveling through the Dark and served as consultant in poetry at the Library of Congress—the position now known as poet laureate of the United States.
Stafford’s The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems was reviewed in AGNI 49 by Eric McHenry.