Reverie– Now at Kada Gallery, Erie, PA
Ask Me
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
–William Stafford, Stories That Could Be True, 1977
Ask me whether what I have done is my life.
Quite a sentence.
It raises all sorts of thoughts and questions, doesn’t it? Who has our river passed by? Who has helped or hurt us, loved or hated us? And has our river changed as it passes by a point long downstream even though it is the same river? If so, how and why?
On another morning it might well be worth a discussion but for today I am just going to let it hang there in the air for you to consider, if you wish. It’s your river after all.
For me, what the river says, that is what I say…
Here’s a song from Nick Lowe, a nice cover of A Quiet Place that was originally performed by Garnett Mimms in 1963. I wrote about Garnett Mimms, playing his version of this song, a couple of years back in a post called Criminally Underappreciated, which I guess says all that needs to be said about his lack of recognition.
But that is simply part of his river. Ask him whether what he has done is his life…
Redtree Times 