Yesterday’s note on William Stafford’s poem “The Animal That Drank Up Sound” should have included an admission: I imagine a giant, arrogant, garish animal that drinks up attention. All of it.
Many people in this country who were paying attention to their lives no longer do. People all over the world no longer do.
This animal is like a rattlesnake. You need to keep an eye on him.
But he’s also like the hideous animal in Stafford’s poem. I think we make a mistake when we let him soak up all our attention.
While I’m going to keep an eye on this animal, I’m not going to let him steal attention from the things that make life worth living.
I’m not inviting him into my mind.
If there’s a couch in my mind, he’s not sleeping on it. Taking up residence is out of the question.
• Source: William Stafford, The Way It Is; Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 1998, pp. 118-19.
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