William Stafford, "Bess"
[[https://bookshop.org/a/114694/9781555972844][]]
I pulled down a copy of William Stafford's The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems and noticed a dog-eared page in the middle of the book. It's not like me to turn over a sheet like that, and in this case it looked like I had twisted two pages downward, as if emphatically.
I don't recall reading this poem, "Bess," let alone marking it, but based on the subject, I can only assume I must have read it in the throes of my stage 4 diagnosis and treatments. Depending on which day I read the poem, I might have marked it out of recognition, aspiration, irony, or disdain – I don't remember with which emotion I reacted, but any of them would have been honest.
Bess
Ours are the streets where Bess first met hercancer. She went to work every day past thesecure houses. At her job in the libraryshe arranged better and better flowers, and whenstudents asked for books her hand went outto help. In the last year of her lifeshe had to keep her friends from knowinghow happy they were. She listened while theycomplained about food or work or the weather.And the great national events dancedtheir grotesque, fake importance. Always
Pain moved where she moved. She walkedahead; it came. She hid; it found her.No one ever served another so truly;no enemy ever meant so strong a hate.It was almost as if there was no roomleft for her on earth. But she rememberedwhere joy used to live. She straightened its flowers;she did not weep when she passed its houses;and when finally she pulled into a tiny cornerand slipped from pain, her hand openedagain, and the streets opened, and she wished all well.
William Stafford