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Assurance

 

You will never be alone, you hear so deep

a sound when autumn comes.  Yellow

pulls across the hills and thrums,

or the silence after lightening before it says

its names—and then the clouds' wide-mouthed

apologies.  You were aimed from birth:

you will never be alone.  Rain

will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon,

long aisles—you never hard so deep a sound,

moss on rock, and years.  You turn your head-

that's what the silence meant: you're not alone.

The whole wide world pours down.

 

            William Stafford