Kim Stafford: Four Poems

Shall We Thank You, Mr. T?

You make clear by everything you say or do
what to love about our country. You hold up
a dark mirror to show us who we are. When you
brag, we remember humble service. When you lie,
we recognize we need leaders unafraid to tell truth.
When you vilify refugees, send them packing into
terror, we understand our empowering history
of compassion. When you defy Congress, we see
the essence of what had been abstract: balance
of power. When you threaten judges, we learn
to champion them. When you ignore due process,
we understand how foundational it is. Your greed
teaches us our treasure of ideals. Your disdain
for expertise will shape our choice of leaders.
Your brief blasts in all caps will make us read
reasoned thought in lower case with gratitude.
Daily, you teach a civics class like no other.
What kind of country shall we be?
Thank you, thank you, Mr. T.

~~~

To Choose

Choose the pup who licks your hand,
the kitten purring before touch. Choose
the friend who questions, who longs
to know your story as it changes. Choose
the calling that wakes you eager to do
the essential impossible. Choose food
your whole body craves, choose rain
to slake your need, and choose good sleep
over the rage to do it all into the wee hours.
Can you choose truth that hurts over lies
that soothe? Can you choose to love all
weather that makes you feel alive? Can you
choose kindness as your universal password?
And when your nation falters, can you choose
to work as if in the early days of a better one?

~~~


My Friend in Gaza Now

Her text says the bombing is getting
closer. She dozes, there’s a blast, a rattle
of debris falling somewhere near. She says
every bomb makes an earthquake. Her heart
stops. She says the forces are getting closer.
She dozes off. She wakes.

Why is war still a thing? Why do I pay
taxes to make the bombs falling all around
my friend? Will this be the last I hear from her?
Will her beautiful soul become a silence, her
teaching of the young a memory smudge?
What will it take to wake the world?

~~~


Crystal Night 2025

The Führer has decided that…demonstrations
should not be prepared or organized by the party,
but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are
not to be hampered. —9 November 1938

~

That night hooligans took to the streets with hammers
and fire. Sacred books were heaped and set ablaze.
Synagogues were smashed and looted. Some held up
their children to see the rage, while others hid behind
their curtains and wept, and the old Kaiser Wilhelm II
said, “I am ashamed to be German.”

This time, smash laws instead of glass, burn customs
instead of books. This time, take a sly shortcut past
due process in law for expedience in expulsion. This
time, make this the land for exile, not the place of safety.
This time, replace freedom of speech with freedom to seize
and deport, while some watch in silence. But not all, my friends.



~~~~

Copyright 2025 Kim Stafford

Kim Stafford is Emeritus Professor at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. He writes, teaches, and travels to raise the human spirit through poetry. In 1986, he founded the Northwest Writing Institute, and he has published a dozen books of poetry and prose, including As the Sky Begins to Change (Red Hen Press, 2024).