William Stafford

Scars

They tell how it was, and how time came along, and how it happened again and again. They tell the slant life takes when it turns and slashes your face as a friend. Any wound is real. In church a woman lets the sun find her cheek, and we see the lesson: there are years in that book; there are sorrows a choir can’t reach when they sing. Rows of children lift their faces of promise, places where the scars will be.