WILLIAM STAFFORD

"Love the Butcher Bird Lurks Everywhere"

A gather of apricots fruit pickers left

gleam like reasons for light going higher, higher;

I look half as hard as I can to tease

the fruit out of its green.

        (It is time to run lest pity overtake us,

        and calamity pit invents to accompany itself:

        to sigh is a stern act—we are judged by this air.)

Down the steady eye of the charging bear

a gun barrel swerves—intention, then flame;

and willows do tricks to find an exact place in the wind:

resolution steady, bent to be true.

        (While there’s time

        I call to you by all these dubious guides:

        “Forsake all ways except the way we came.”)