You will never be alone, you hear so deep
a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums,
or the silence after lightning before it says
its names – and then the clouds’ wide-mouthed
apologies. You were aimed from birth:
you will never be alone. Rain
will come, a gutter filled, and Amazon,
long aisles – you never heard so deep a sound,
moss on rock, and years. You turn your head –
that’s what the silence meant: you’re not alone.
The whole wide world pours down.
Sometimes it isn’t big productions that give us strength and reassure us. There have been studies shown that nature calms people down, and people often have oceanic feelings of sorts when interacting with nature. I read this poem and knew exactly what Stafford meant by this because I’ve sought solace in the forest or on a hike or in the breathtaking chaos of a thunderstorm. Even if you don’t believe that there’s a Gd in nature, that He is among His creations, it’s as if nature takes on its own form, it is alive. You aren’t alone.