a glass face in the rain

A poem has been stuck in my head, a poem by William Stafford.  I thought today that when I got home from work, I'd find the poem and revisit it, then post the words so that someone else can know it as well.  But something odd happened, when I was flipping through Stafford's book, I kept finding marked passages.  I don't remember marking them but I recognize my writing, my notes, and when I read the marked lines, I know why I marked them.  Here's the passages I marked (and the name of the poems from which they came):

What came to me in trust no one
could take away.  I knew
it was mine.
(Rover)

just being is a big enough job,
no time for anything else.
(Glimpses)

Somewhere I had lost someone-
so dear or so great or so fine
that I never cared again: as if
time dimmed, and color and sound were gone.
(Looking Across the River)

Could there be a light so far that when
you stop you make a shadow forever?
(Passing A Pile of Stones)

Think about me, my
story, how I was in the world-
maybe to help you - a long time ago.
(Finding Out)

A parachute catches and suddenly you know
you've been falling for years.
(A Glimpse in the Crowd)

I roll my head for the world, for its need
and this wild, snuggling need and pain of my own.
(In A Corner)

Now I carry those days in a tiny box
wherever I go.  I open the lid like this
and let the light glimpse and then glance away.
There is a sigh like my breath when I do this.
Some days I do this again and again.
(Remembering)

hope lasts a long time if you're happy
(Yellow Cars)

The world looks
tame, but might go wild, any time.
(Torque)

Some day your world won't last all day.
(Revelation)

Their voices
lurk behind their doors, where they always were,
for me.
(Hanging Tough)

I bend over my book and cry,
and fly all alone through the night
toward being the person I am.
(School Days)

You can be
still.  You can smile.  I'm the one with the fears.
It always was cold, those years.
(At the Falls: A Birthday Picture)

And because I like
your face, when you turn toward me
I hear a long silence.
(A Letter Not to Deliver)

When I go down
the street my memory is a vault that no one
need see opened.
(Confessor)

Remember that scene? - inside it you folded the last
of your jealousy and hate, and all those deeds so hard
to forget.  Absolution: swish! - you took
the past into your mouth,
and swallowed it, warm, thin, bitter, and good.
(With Neighbors One Afternoon)

so faint a life,
and so little done.
(Friends, Farewell)

everything we promised
each other would whirl away
(Survivor)

There is no other tide
so strong as this tide
in the silence of the world.
(Much Have I Traveled)

you and I burning like candles, but locked
each in a separate room, more than
ever alive but never again to touch,
even in a place called home.
(Once In A Dream)

"It's hard." "I'm alone." "Where are the years?"
(The Late Flight)

(Everything stops,
and I am reaching out for everything.)
(What I'll See That Afternoon)

there will be
gaps in the air, places like flowers
no one can see.
(Yucca Flowers)

the world out there - not caring who
we are - reaches us millions of ways
(From Our Balloon Over the Provinces)

On one page I had marked an entire poem.

Over these writings I bent my head.
Now you are considering them.  If you
turn away I will look up: a bridge
that was there will be gone.
For the rest of your life I will stand here,
reaching across.

If these writings can bring a turn
or an echo that touches you - maybe
a face, a slant, a tune - you will stop
too and bend over them.  When you
look up, your thought will reach
wherever I am.

I know it is strange.  And there's no measure
for this.  The only connection we make
is like a twinge when sometimes they change
the beat in music, and we sprawl with it
and hear another world for a minute
that is almost there.
(Sending These Messages)

Never read anything by William Stafford?  You should.