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 — 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 torture and kill two billion sentient living beings every week. 10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one, and we are now facing the sixth mass extinction in cosmological history. If any other organism did this, a biologist would consider them a virus.
We've gotten so far away from our food source. It's been hijacked from us. But if you get soil, plant something in it and water it, you can feed yourself. It's that simple.
Mathematics are well and good but Nature keeps dragging us around by the nose.
The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades.
Nature hides her secrets because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse.
Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.
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