Sometimes

When they criticize you how do you

Hold your wings?

I hold mine put

And down, descend a little, then more.

Cool air comes. Nobody cares how low

I descend, and the way my eyes close

Makes me disappear. They have their sky again.

So then a life I have, scribbling dust

When I turn, trailing as if to follow

Something inside the earth, something beyond

This place.

If I accept what comes,

Another sky is there. My serious face

Bends to the ground, the dust, the lowered wings.

William Stafford