ASK ME

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes that 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 hurt: Ask me what difference
Their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you will 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