I’m still thinking of birthdays. Today I read William Stafford’s beautiful poem, School Play. I couldn’t find it on the internet so I emailed the folks at the William Stafford Archives website. They are graciously allowing me to reprint it as long as I give credit to Graywolf Press. So first, here is his poem:
School Play
By William Stafford
You were a princess, lost; I
was a little bird. Nobody cared
where we went or how we sang.
A storm, I seem to remember, a giant
wave, some kind of crash at the end,
I think we cried when they took off our wings.
If time should happen again–and it could;
we’re still in a play, you know–maybe
we’ll hide so well the wave will pass
and after the storm we’ll come out. We both
will really believe what, even then, we knew:
not the princess, not the bird–but the song–
xxxxwas true.
© Graywolf Press all rights reserved
This poem touched me and opened me. At first I tried to imitate it, but then I just floated downstream, where words lead me…back to a memory I come back to over and over again. One of my favorite days.
BIRTHDAY
By April Halprin Wayland
My French was lousy.
I could never remember which accent
went up, which went down.
But I found a raft on the Feather River,
just as you’d imagine a raft:
fat branches and rotted two-by-fours
roped together. I lay down
in my chartreuse bikini with white polka dots,
my ten-year-old tummy bare against the wood,
the water seeping up.
I pushed off from the shore, pushed off and into the current,
the brown current of the Feather River.
Sun beat down on my back,
my fingers trailed in the cool water,
little gnats softened the look of the sky,
I smelled cotton wood trees, muck, dead fish and river.
If ever there was a day,
this was the day.
xxx
poem and drawing © 2010 April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved
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