“Our Houses”
When we enter the unknown
of our houses,
go inside the given up dark
and sheltering walls alone
and turn out the lamps
we fall bone to bone in bed.
Neighbors, the old woman who knows you
turns over in me
and I wake up
another country. There’s no more
north and south.
Asleep, we pass through one another,
like blowing snow,
all of us,
all.
A poem by William Stafford (1914-1993) for all of us, young and old, who are full of fear right now for so many shared and different reasons.
“For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid”
There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot—air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That’s the world, and we all live there.
live in the layers 