{"id":5613,"date":"2012-09-26T21:43:12","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T01:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/?p=5613"},"modified":"2012-09-26T21:43:12","modified_gmt":"2012-09-27T01:43:12","slug":"poem-william-stafford-a-ritual-to-read-to-each-other","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/poem-william-stafford-a-ritual-to-read-to-each-other\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem: William Stafford – A Ritual To Read To Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cattails\"<\/p>\n

I consistently go back to William Stafford’s poetry. I’ve posted this before, but here it is again..<\/p>\n

\nA Ritual To Read To Each Other
\nby William Stafford<\/p>\n

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
\nand I don’t know the kind of person you are
\na pattern that others made may prevail in the world
\nand following the wrong god home we may miss our star.<\/p>\n

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
\na shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
\nsending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
\nstorming out to play through the broken dyke.<\/p>\n

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
\nbut if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
\nI call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
\nto know what occurs but not recognize the fact.<\/p>\n

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
\na remote important region in all who talk:
\nthough we could fool each other, we should consider–
\nlest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.<\/p>\n

For it is important that awake people be awake,
\nor a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
\nthe signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–
\nshould be clear: the darkness around us is deep. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I consistently go back to William Stafford’s poetry. I’ve posted this before, but here it is again.. A Ritual To Read To Each Other by William Stafford If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5614,"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613\/revisions\/5614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ruralpearl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}