When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses off--they were still singing. They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table and then ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and knew that nails up there took a new grip on whatever they touched. "I am your own way of looking at things," she said. "When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

<> <> <> <>

Waking at 3 a.m.

Even in the cave of the night when you wake and are free and lonely, neglected by others, discarded, loved only by what doesn't matter--even in that big room no one can see, you push with your eyes till forever comes in its twisted figure eight and lies down in your head.

You think water in the river; you think slower than the tide in the grain of the wood; you become a secret storehouse that saves the country, so open and foolish and empty.

You look over all that the darkness ripples across. More than has ever been found comforts you. You open your eyes in a vault that unlocks as fast and as far as your thought can run. A great snug wall goes around everything, has always been there, will always remain. It is a good world to be lost in. It comforts you. It is all right. And you sleep.

both... by William Stafford