December 6 2023

“His father seemed to hear voices from far out in the night. He is described as a listener who encouraged. When William was nine or ten, his father, walking with him in his alert, bird-glimpsing way, remarked, ‘Now Billy, look carefully in these trees—you may be able to see the hawk better than I can.’ That's astonishing in this world where so many fathers compete with their sons: ‘Give me that wrench …you're ruining everything.’”

— Robert Bly writing about the poet William Stafford and Stafford’s relationship with his father (from the introduction to Stafford’s book of poetry “The Darkness Around Us is Deep”)