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.
Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come... Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed, to embrace the whole of creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder.
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.
Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain.
The uplands of my home country in north central Kentucky are sloping and easily eroded, dependent for safekeeping upon year-round cover of perennial plants.
I choose to listen to the river for a while, thinking river thoughts, before joining the night and the stars.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.