As the Sky Begins to Change

By Kim Stafford

In his third poetry collection from Red Hen Press, Kim Stafford gathers poems that sing with empathy, humor, witness, and story. Poems in this book have been set to music, quoted in the New York Times, posted online in the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, gathered in a chapbook sold to benefit Ukrainian refugees, posted online in response to Supreme Court decisions, composed for a painter’s gallery opening, and in other ways engaged a world at war with itself, testifying for the human project hungry for kinship, exiled from bounty, and otherwise thirsting for the oxygen of healing song.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781636281513

Kim Stafford

Kim Stafford is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis & Clark College and author of eighteen books of poetry and prose, including Singer Come from Afar (Red Hen Press) and 100 Tricks Every Boy Can Do: How My Brother Disappeared (Trinity University Press). His poems have appeared in Poetry, Harpers, the Atlantic, and other magazines. His books have received Pacific Northwest Book Awards and a Citation for Excellence from the Western States Book Awards. In 2018 he was named Oregon Poet Laureate for a two-year term. He lives with his family in Portland, Oregon.

Book preview

1.

Earth Verse

For the Bird Singing before Dawn

Some people presume to be hopeful

with no evidence for hope, to be

happy when there is no cause.

Let me say now, I’m with them.

In deep darkness on a cold twig

in a dangerous world, one first

little fluff utters a peep, a warble,

a song—and in a little while, behold:

first glimmer shows, then a glow

filters through misty trees,

then the bold sun rises, then

everyone starts bustling about.

And that first crazy optimist, can we

forgive her for thinking, dawn by dawn,

"Hey, I made that happen!

And oh, life is so fine."

Resilience

Is resilience being strong

as iron, or perennial as grass?

Is resilience standing fast

in storms, or seeking to understand

how old trees, deep-rooted, bend?

Resilient is the one who whispers

at darkest hours, This, too, shall pass.

Resilience begins in knowing sorrow,

and ends in finding how to tell its tale.

Resilience mutters in trouble, I wonder

what we’ll learn. To be resilient, juggle

strength with tenderness, in compassion

stern. Resilience lives through struggle

by thinking beyond struggle: what does

my foe need to be my friend? Resilience

means you need not win, and yet prevail.

Raccoon in Plum Time

You live in a hollow tree—with bugs. In rain,

you drag heavy—coat and tail soggy