Poet’s Corner: Stafford

29 January 2026

We turn this week (28 March 2014) to a contemporary poet, William Stafford, and a poem that had profound influence on my own personal voice, “Traveling Through the Dark.”

Traveling Through the Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing,
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason–
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside the mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights,
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all–my only swerving–,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

When I first read this poem, I could ‘hear’ the poet’s voice in my head, and knew I had discovered something important; I had traveled those narrow, winding roads over the coastal range in Oregon, traveling with my wife, so I immediately recognized the setting, and the danger, but more than this, I found a poetic voice that resonated deep inside, telling a simple story in the Romantic mode. Following this first reading, I wrote my first narrative poem, one of many that became my semester’s poetry project, “Ode to a Stump Farm,” poems about living and growing up on a north Idaho ranch/farm, and the pains of the transition from child to adult. My poetry professor, and the grad. assistant, came to me after I shared this first narrative poem, and said, “You need to write more like this one–this is really good!” Since then, I haven’t ceased to write narrative poems, inspired by my first reading of Stafford’s poem. . . .

Ode to a Stump Farm: Fragments of Memory Lost is available in digital and print forms using the links provided!