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World Poetry Translation Project


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Atavism

by William Stafford

1
Sometimes in the open you look up
where birds go by, or just nothing,
and wait. A dim feeling comes
you were like this once, there was air,
and quiet; it was by a lake, or
maybe a river you were alert
as an otter and were suddenly born
like the evening star into wide
still worlds like this one you have found
again, for a moment, in the open.


2
Something is being told in the woods: aisles of
shadow lead away; a branch waves;
a pencil of sunlight slowly travels its
path. A withheld presence almost
speaks, but then retreats, rustles
a patch of brush. You can feel
the centuries ripple generations
of wandering, discovering, being lost
and found, eating, dying, being born.
A walk through the forest strokes your fur,
the fur you no longer have. And your gaze
down a forest aisle is a strange, long
plunge, dark eyes looking for home.
For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers
wider than your mind, away out over everything.


American Review | www.PaperLyon.com | McGill Live Radio | Publish
 

  Translations for this Poem
 English  Spanish  French  German
 Italian  Portuguese  Korean  Russian
 Chinese  Japanese    
 

  Poems by William Stafford
  1. Across Kansas
  2. Allegiances
  3. Ask Me
  4. Atavism
  5. A Ritual To Read To Each Other
  6. For My Young Friends Who Are Afra
  7. Graydiggers Home
  8. Just Thinking
  9. Lit Instructor
  10. Notice What This Poem Is Not Doin
  11. Objector
  12. Remembering Mountain Men
  13. Returned To Say
  14. Security
  15. The Light By The Barn
  16. Thinking For Berky
  17. This Life
  18. Traveling Through The Dark
  19. Waking at 3 am
  20. When I Met My Muse
 
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRSTVWY[ALL] 
  W.H. Auden 
  W.S. Merwin 
  Wallace Stevens 
  Walt Whitman 
  Walter Savage Landor 
  Wang Wei 
  Weldon Kees 
  Wendell Berry 
  Wilfred Owen 
  William Barnes 
  William Blake 
  William Butler Yeats 
  William Carlos Williams 
  William Collins 
  William Cowper 
  William Drummond 
  William Ernest Henley 
  William Lisle Bowles 
  William Shakespeare 
  William Stafford 
  William Wordsworth 
  Wislawa Szymborska 
   

Volunteers needed to translate poetry into different languages. Please help us correct the translation of these poems. We currently have 79,663 translations and are trying to create the largest and most accurate database of world poetry translations. We have started with machine translations which are very inaccurate. Please translate your favorite poem on this site. You will be given credit for your translation and a link to your site if desired. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: These poems have been gathered and submitted by many of people, and from many sources. Most have no copyright. However, some may may have copyrights. We have tried to collect poems that appear on many external sites where the author seems to want to disseminate. If you are an author and do not want your poetry translated into other languages then send a removal request and it will be promptly removed.
 





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