Connecting Earth and Sky by Barbara Stafford-Wilson

From the time I was in the high chair Daddy would hold his fist in front of my face and say, "Who's boss, Babe?" and I would hit his fist away, and we would laugh. Somehow, to me, Daddy was like the beginning, the first father. How he became such a deep, complex, humane person was an enigma. He said talk should be reckless, and so conversation was full of life and inventiveness. He had a wonderfully deft habit of using a word no one else knew, and his eyebrows would raise and lower, and he would smile.

Daddy got his writing done in the morning, rising in the dark while the house was quiet. I knew he woke early, and before I understood what that time meant for him I decided to keep him company, so I would get up at 4:30. He would greet me and we would talk. He never let me know this was his precious time. And so he would get up earlier-and I would get up earlier-to keep him company. Finally I couldn't keep it up, and he had his writing time.

While he conversed with Kierkegaard, Alfred North Whitehead, Nietzsche, he could fix anything — often with a rubber band. With great ceremony he would tune the guitar he'd traded for a hatchet; he made undrinkable Dandelion and Blackberry wine labeled "Yum!", snuck raw garlic into food, and forever stretched and restretched his beloved hat over the mixing bowl. Daddy would read physics and astronomy, Trollope and Emily Dickinson, while he loved Perry Mason, and laughed until he cried over Jerry Lewis and Laurel and Hardy. Our mother says, "Bill, he was unusual. He was a man whose thoughts were of the spirit, and whose feet were on the ground."

Ever steady, happy, sociable, Daddy participated in the light part of our lives with good humor and readiness. And in our father's quiet way he said many more things to us. We were aware of the cave of darkness, the aloneness, and the cold of the universe — that whole world we read in his poetry where he explains "my habit is the dark." There is the shadow that saves, a place of mystery to explore, where instead of being lost one could feel comforted, instead of being frightened one could count on it. When Dad once found me crying over my C in Algebra, he said, "Why Babe, I always wanted an average child! And besides you don't want to make the others feel bad, do you?" Several years ago I mentioned that he really should write a poem for me. He did. It starts out with something about how in prison they would give me the good cell....

When we were young, the folks would write our name and address in our shoe, and Daddy would say, "Now remember to talk to strangers." In this way our father taught us many things about the world and our citizenship. There are strangers, and we knew what other people's parents said about that. But he could say, seek out what is unknown to you and learn about it. Expect good will on the part of other people. Because Home will always be here. . . it is in your shoe wherever you go.

Falling backward into our father's arms we would play a game of trust-it was so scary. . . but we knew he would catch us. And then from time to time he would stand to one side, put a hand on our shoulder and say, "I'm not there now." I feel his hand still here since he's stepped aside.

Barbara Stafford-Wilson is an artist living in Portland, Oregon.

Five A.M.

Still dark, the early morning breathes
a soft sound above the fire. Hooded
lights on porches lead past lawns,
a hedge; I pass the house of the couple
who have the baby, the yard with the little
dog; my feet pad and grit on the pavement, flicker
past streetlights; my arms alternate
easily to my pace. Where are my troubles?

There are people in every country who never
turn into killers, saints have built
sanctuaries on islands and in valleys,
conquerors have quit and gone home, for thousands
of years farmers have worked their fields.
My feet begin the uphill curve
where a thicket spills with birds every spring.
The air doesn't stir. Rain touches my face.

Copyright 1991, 1998 by the Estate of William Stafford. All rights reserved.