Stafford: ‘With Kit, Age 7, at the Beach’

 I think William Stafford is one of the best American poets and that one of his best poems is about being a parent.

A father takes his daughter to the beach. They climb a dune and watch the sea rage.

            “How far could you swim, Daddy,

            in such a storm?”

            “As far as was needed,” I said,

            and as I talked, I swam.

Being a parent is like that, and so it’s about parenting. Writing is like that sometimes, so I think it’s also about writing. In a lot of things we do, we don’t have answers. We don’t have skill. What we can bring to the task is endurance, determination in action.

• Source: William Stafford, The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems; Minneapolis, Minn.: Graywolf Press, 1998, p. 120.