q

One with outward courage dares to die;
One with inward courage dares to live.
Lao Tzu

p

Getting Scared

Tending our fire in the oil drum, we felt

that second earthquake begin. Near dawn it was,

when everything stills. To be safe, we had

slept in a field. We felt a long slow wave

in the earth. It wasn't the stars that moved, but ourselves,

in time to a dance the dead could feel. Our fire

stirred where it cooled. Sparks whirled up.

Crawling along by a breath at a time, we tried to

get low; we tried to sight across level earth

near dawn and let the time tell us about how

to be alive in the grass, the miles, the strangeness,

with only the sun looking back from the other end of light.

We moved out as far as we could. "Forever," we thought,

"if we breathe too hard it will all be gone."

We spread our arms out wide on the ground

and held still. We set out for that cave we knew

above a stream, where early sunlight reaches

far back, willows all around, and clams in the river

for the taking. And we prayed for that steady event

we had loved so long without knowing it, our greatest

possession—the world when it didn't move.

William Stafford

q

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. 

-Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)