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 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.