"I suppose I have the Irish weakness for words gone wild. Besides, if you're celibate,
you have to do something.
— Andrew Greeley
Poems on Passing
WHAT'S IN MY JOURNAL
Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Things, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone's terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.
— William Stafford
from Crossing Unmarked Snow © University of Michigan Press.
