Favorite Poem of Mine

This is one of my favorite poems, by William Stafford. My own attempts at a reflection follow.


Saint Matthew and All

Lorene--we thought she'd come home. But
it got late, and then days. Now
it has been years. Why shouldn't she,
if she wanted? I would: something comes
along, a sunny day, you start walking:
you meet a person who says, "Follow me,"
and things lead on.

Usually, it wouldn't happen, but sometimes
the neighbors notice your car is gone, the
patch of oil in the driveway, and it fades.
They forget.

In the Bible it happened--fishermen, Levites.
They just went away and kept going. Thomas,
away off in India, never came back.

But Lorene--it was a stranger maybe, and he
said, "Your life, I need it." And nobody else did.


The first time I read this poem, I re-read it and re-read it. I consumed these words. I thought I'd never encountered a poem like this before. It was so simple. The language so straightforward and unadorned. It almost wasn't a poem. There was something subversive about it, I thought. But of course, it is very lyrical, and there is a beautiful, if subtle, use of sound.

Nevertheless, the borderline subversive, mysterious, almost dangerous quality remains. Stafford is telling the story of a small community and one woman who isn't there any more. She's gone. We thought she'd come back, but there's only a faded patch of oil in the driveway. Who couldn't be a bit disturbed by the unexpected, by the disruption of order like that.

And at the same time, Stafford is so generous, without judgment. "Why shouldn't she, if she wanted. I would...."

But when he compares her leaving to the decision of the disciples of Jesus to follow him.... I started to feel for the first time the depth of how disruptive and disturbing this could be to a community, even how disturbing this was to those staid and rigid parts of me.

Finally those last lines, "It was a stranger maybe, and he said, 'Your life, I need it,' and nobody else did," have communicated more to me about the transcendent freedom of each life than any other words I have ever encountered. I feel sure that although Stafford might not know the implications of what he wrote, he knew that a life was freer and more glorious than any other witness can recognize. And when I read those lines, I knew that too, and I knew that Jesus knew that truth even better. I felt a little part of me come alive and say, 'Yes,' I too have a true life, beyond any "role," in any community, and this is the life that Jesus is asking for.

I'm still amazed that a few plain spoken lines about an absent, "unimportant" woman in a small town can bring that kind of transforming power, but I witness that they can. I think that is subversive, and I long for more of that dangerous power.