How These Words Happened
William Stafford
In winter, in the dark hours, when others were asleep,
I found these words and put them
together by their appetites and respect for
each other. In stillness, they jostled. They traded
meanings while pretending to have only one.
Monstrous alliances never dreamed of before
began. Sometimes they last. Never again
do they separate in this world. They die together.
They have a fidelity that no purpose
or pretense can ever break.
And all of this happens like magic to the words
in those dark hours when others sleep.
excerpted from The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford
Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Bly
