Singer Come From Afar

Kim Stafford

• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781597098885
• eBook ISBN: 9781597098878
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

The five sections in Kim Stafford’s Singer Come from Afar hold poems that summon war and peace, pandemic struggles, Earth imperatives, a seeker’s spirit, and forge kinship. The former poet laureate of Oregon, Stafford has shared poems from this book in libraries, prisons, on reservations, with veterans, immigrants, homeless families, legislators, and students in schools. He writes for hidden heroes, resonant places, and for our chance to converge in spite of differences. Poems like “Practicing the Complex Yes” and “The Fact of Forgiveness” engineer tools for connection with the self, the community, and the Earth: “It is a given you have failed . . . [but] the world can’t keep its treasures from you.” For the early months of the pandemic, Stafford wrote and posted a poem for challenge and comfort each day on Instagram and published a series of chapbooks that traveled hand to hand to far places—to Norway, Egypt, and India. He views the writing and sharing of poetry as an essential act of testimony to sustain tikkun olam, the healing of the world. May this book be the hidden spring you seek.

1.

In Spite of War

White Flag Patriots

The children went first

because they had the most to lose—

no color, no emblem on their flags,

no shouting, surrendering instead

as they shuffled toward the White House,

some crying, some stern,

a few humming lullabies

their mothers had taught them.

In the Rose Garden, where men

babbled into microphones,

the children lay down in the grass

to watch clouds drift west

until speeches trailed off

and only the wind was heard.

Then white flags flashed

as the children rose and sang together,

You have overcome, but we are not afraid.

For the Customs Agent Who
Seized Claudia’s Jar of Honey
from El Salvador

for Claudia Castro Luna

Para probar, she said. Taste it. Let it

sizzle on your tongue. Take it home

smuggled in your dark pocket,

and with a spoon drip to the tongues

of your children slow sips of joy

so they may know how sweet

my country once was in spite

of war and sorrow. Tell them

about the ravine of flowers

the soldiers missed but the bees

swarmed, humming and humming,

zumbando y zumbando.

Remind them how a mother

could sit by the road with

her daughter in her arms

and a few jars of true gold,

how my coins in her brown

hand meant enough this day,

even though her man was gone,

even though your law would take

this elixir from me, even though

there will always be war, but always

flowers, bees, mothers, and your children.

If you have no children, if you do not wish

to think of war, or my country, or the woman

by the road, still, I beg you, taste this honey,

let the sticky song of a thousand bees

give your body the oldest, deepest pleasure.

Do not lose your chance to know

how sweet my country once was

in spite of war and sorrow,

a pesar de la guerra y el dolor.

Nest Filled

Use your whirling wings to find the right tree.

Use your pert eye to choose the level limb.

Use your nimble feet to cherish the hospitable fork.

Use your fearless beak to gather twigs, leaves,

grass and thistledown to weave your basket-house

open to the wuthering sky.

Use your body to be the tent over tender pebbles,

lopsided moons. Then wait—warm, alert, still

through wind and rain, hawk-shadow, owl night.

Use your life to make life, spending all you have

on what comes after. And if you are human, a true

citizen, fully awake, then learn from the sparrow

how to build a house, a village, a nation. Use instinct

to find the right place. Use thought to know the right

time. Use wisdom to design the right action.

In the era of stormy weather, build your

sturdy nest, and fill it with the future.

Dear Mr. President

In sheer contradiction of your efforts

to warn our fellow citizens of the danger

of immigrants, a certain Antonio—from

Michoacán, who has been living without documents

as my neighbor for fifteen years—has put me

to shame with his work ethic, thrift, good humor,

and courage, building stone walls, repairing roads,

tilling gardens, and otherwise inflicting beauty

and good order on this neglected corner of our nation

in spite of all you say to drive him away.

You, sir, are not getting through!

He keeps smiling, and bending to any task

we offer for simple wages, humming a song

I can’t get out of my head or heart.

I do not know how to advise you, sir.

You have labored long and loud to cast him

down, cast him out, but he just keeps

humming that song: Qué linda está

la mañana, en que vengo a saludarte. . . .

He is saying the morning is beautiful,

sir, and he greets you, singing.

The Flavor of Unity

El sabor que nos hace unidos.

The flavor that makes us one cannot be bought

or sold, does not belong to a country, cannot

enrich the rich or be...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• 1. In Spite of War
• 2. Pandemic Poems
• 3. Revising Genesis
• 4. The Cup No One Can See
• 5. And All My Love
• Afterword
• Biographical Note