Ghazal (For William Stafford) By David Keefe

I will follow my master and in the soft quiet
become a morning poet.

Listening to the world, all its questions
between today and tomorrow.

For a match starts a fire, a shout to a mountain
sometimes starts an avalanche.

The grey line of the road ahead embraces us;
yet we can still be lost in our own life.

When many people offer to be your guide,
perhaps it is because your father couldn’t reach you.

~ from What have you lost?  (HarperCollins, Greenwillow Books, 1999)