You Are Welcome, Welcome

I obviously have a thing for William Stafford's work, because this is the third time I have turned to his poetry. There's something about the way he put words together.

When You Go Anywhere
by William Stafford

This passport your face (not you
officially, your picture, but the face
used to make the passport) offers
everyone its witness: "This is me."

It feels like only a picture, a passport
forced upon you. Somewhere this oval,
sudden and lasting, appeared. It happened
that you were behind it, like it or not.

You present it--your passport, your face --
wherever you go. It says, "A little country,"
it says "Allow this friendly observer
quiet passage," it says, "Ordinary," it says, "Please."

A link to Wm. Stafford info for teachers

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Diane Mayr at Random Noodling posted the last stanza of Paul Laurence Dunbar's Invitation to Love last week for Poetry Friday and I was so taken with it that I decided to post the whole thing here this week. You can also listen to Herbert Martin read it here.

Invitation to Love
by Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906

Invitation to Love
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or come when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene’er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it to rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd’ning cherry.
Come when the year’s first blossom blows,
Come when the summer gleams and glows,
Come with the winter’s drifting snows,
And you are welcome, welcome.

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Poetry Friday this week is being hosted by Susan Taylor Brown.