Listening

by William Stafford


My father could hear a little animal step,
or a moth in the dark against the screen,
and every far sound pulled the listening out
into places the rest of us had never been.

More spoke to him from the soft wild night
than came to our porch for the family on the wind;
we watched him listen, and his face go keen,
till the walls of the world flared, widened.

My father brought in so much that we still stand
inviting the quiet by turning the face,
waiting for the time when the soft wild night
will reach to us here, from that other place.

- William Stafford from Winterward. © Tavern Books, 2013.