Poems that you love

[ellajam]

Nice one, liz.
This one has a great title and says so much for a little poem. The breaks are so strong, it makes me think hard about
"by luck into a little pocket out of"

Interesting.  

After Arguing against the Contention That Art Must Come from Discontent
BY WILLIAM E. STAFFORD
Whispering to each handhold, “I'll be back,”  
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place  
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush
of the torrent almost drowns it out, and the wind—
I almost forgot the wind: it tears at your side  
or it waits and then buffets; you sag outward. . . .

I remember they said it would be hard. I scramble  
by luck into a little pocket out of
the wind and begin to beat on the stones
with my scratched numb hands, rocking back and forth
in silent laughter there in the dark—
“Made it again!” Oh how I love this climb!
—the whispering to stones, the drag, the weight  
as your muscles crack and ease on, working  
right. They are back there, discontent,
waiting to be driven forth. I pound
on the earth, riding the earth past the stars:  
“Made it again! Made it again!”