for William Stafford
Where is the cardboard box
William Stafford used for a desk
when he sat on the sofa
before anyone else was awake
and wrote poems?
What is it holding now,
ten years after his death,
when his son finally published
the last of them?
Happier holding paint cans
than poems, I bet,
as Buddha Bill was happier
in working clothes than standing
in the expert’s spot.
That divine discomfort
marked you out, Bill,
the sign you knew
poetry and life
and the difference between them.
