Assurance by William Stafford

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, an 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.

– from The Way It Is, Graywolf Press, 1999

Featured Image Attribution: Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay