All still when summer is over stand shocks in the field, nothing left to whisper, not even good-bye, to the wind. After summer was over we knew winter would come: we knew silence would wait, tall, patient calm.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the transition from summer to winter, highlighting the inevitable change and silence that accompanies the change of seasons.
William Stafford's quote beautifully captures the essence of nature's cycles, specifically the quiet melancholy that follows the vibrancy of summer. As summer fades, it leaves behind an emptiness, represented by the 'shocks in the field' and a silence that is both calming and expectant of the approaching winter. The imagery conjured emphasizes a deep understanding and acceptance of the seasonal transformations in life, as well as the natural pauses that allow for reflection and awaiting what comes next.
In practice
In a speech about embracing change, this quote can illustrate the beauty of transitions.
I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind, "Who are you really, wanderer?"-- and the answer you have to give no matter how dark and cold the world around you is: "Maybe I'm a king.
A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them β those are you, those are why you are in the world.
A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
So, the world happens twice--_x000D_ once what we see it as;_x000D_ second it legends itself_x000D_ deep, the way it is.
We are beginning to learn that each animal has a life and a place and a role in this world. If we place compassion and care in the middle of all our dealings with the animal world and honor and respect their lives, our attitudes will change.
On the batβs back I do fly After summer merrily.
If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur, then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.
I'm swanning round the world looking at the most fabulously interesting things. Such good fortune.
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long.
I wish that all of nature's magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.
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