"Are you / What I was? What I will be?"

I know, I know! I've gotten complaints from my mother and my grandmother, and, yes, it's been over a week since I've posted. I really am sorry, but last week was just too busy with teaching demonstrations, informational interviews, and weddings. So I had to take a bit of a blog break and let other things take over for awhile.

Today, there's something in the air, that old October melancholy that seems to strike everyone at once. Everyone is breaking out their sweaters, airing out old blankets, and settling in for the winter, even though the temperatures are still firmly in the mid-60s every afternoon. We humans know that winter's coming, somehow, just like the squirrels do when they start plowing frantic little holes all over our front lawns.

Here's a poem that's been on my mind lately as I've watched the seasons changing. It's the first poem in William Stafford's collected volume The Way It Is, and it was first published in Sometimes I Breathe (1992). I couldn't say why I like it--it's a plain poem, with little imagery and few flourishes. But it seems so accurate, somehow, to what the Kansas sky is really like during these October days, so beautiful, and so impassively serene.

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Sky

By William Stafford
From Sometimes I Breathe (1992)

I like you with nothing. Are you

what I was? What I will be?

I look out there by the hour,

so clear, so sure. I could

smile, or frown—still nothing.

Be my father, be my mother,

great sleep of blue; reach

far within me; open doors,

find whatever is hiding; invite it

for many clear days in the sun.

When I turn away I know

you are there. We won't forget

each other: every look is a promise.

Others can't tell what you say

when it's the blue voice, when

you come to the window and look for me.

Your word arches over

the roof all day. I know it

within my bowed head, where

the other sky listens.

You will bring me

everything when the time comes.