Ask Me

No ice on the river, obviously, but this poem has been prominently on my mind the last couple of days.

Ask Me
by William Stafford

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others 
have come in their slow way to help 
or to hurt: ask me what difference 
their strongest love or hate has made.


I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.