You Reading This, Be Ready by William Stafford

You Reading This, Be Ready

by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world

than the breathing respect that you carry

wherever you go right now? Are you waiting

for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this

new glimpse that you found; carry into evening

all that you want from this day. This interval you spent

reading or hearing this, keep it for life--

What can anyone give you greater than now,

starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

Well, you know I love poems with questions! And this poem directly addresses the reader, which is also a fun thing to do (and is most likely also talking to himself). Stafford, of course, makes his interaction deeply meaningful.

Stafford begins with clear, concrete imagery: sunlight, shining floor, old wood, the air. And the poem begins with an incredibly powerful question/challenge: "What do you want to remember?" This question can be a great source of motivation, especially when we are wasting time in some superficial way (we all do this differently, so no examples from me here!).

In the second stanza, he asks two questions. The second question is a bit chiding, isn't it, but in a gentle way. Clearly, the poem's speaker is telling us that time will not necessarily give us anything better than what is happening, and what we are thinking and feeling, at the present moment.

The word "here," used in the first stanza, is repeated in the third as Stafford builds on this poem's point: "carry into evening all that you want from this day." (Stafford famously woke up very early each day to write; I imagine this poem was a type of mantra for him.) He tells us to remember for the rest of our lives what we are gleaning from this poem.

The last stanza--a couplet, after 3 quartrains--repeats "here" once more, and adds "now" to the mix. It is also one question--what could be better than the present?

This poem is a lovely reminder of existing in the current moment, in the place where you are, and being grateful all the time.

William Stafford was born in Kansas. He was a conscientious observer in WWII, and published his first book of poetry when he was 48. He is much beloved everywhere as a poet a teacher, a mentor, and an ambassador of poetry, but especially here in Oregon, where he spent most of his adult life. This link will take you to a calligraphy of this poem, a broadside that is part of the Lake Oswego (the town where Stafford lived) Public Art Collection.