William Stafford

[William Stafford's first poem, from Another World Instead: The Early Poems of William Stafford 1937-1947, edited by Fred Marchant]

White Pigeons

What’s that —
The trumpet call, the haunting cry of aching land —
A wild goose passing?
From down what violet sky —
The looming winter night now edging frozen land —
Come circling home
White pigeons?

This is the aching land,
The bleak and desolate.
This is the plains.
On this blank loneliness in huddled clump
A house, a barn, and fences.
A boy, foreshortened, small, wind-buffeted,
His pigeons watched come home.
Hard sky, hard earth.
Soft pigeons.
Grateful pigeons, rustling, sleepy cluttering.
Soft
Soft pigeons.

What’s that —
The trumpet call, the haunting cry of aching land —
A wild goose passing?
From down what violet sky —
The looming winter night now edging frozen land —
Come circling home
White pigeons?

Lawrence, Kansas
Spring 1937

Another World Instead: The Early Poems of William Stafford, 1937-1947