Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made.
Ask me whether what I have done in my life.
Others have come in their slow way into my thought,
and some have tried 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.
 --William Stafford