Zaharibu sent this poem along with his letter in April, and he wrote underneath: “one of my favorites.”
William Stafford: A Ritual to Read to Each Other
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
A calm and gentle breeze blows in from the sea
It is morning
Far, far out on the pristine blue canvas
Swans slowly move their wings
Morning, and as every morning
It is the first morning ever to come to us
Morning
The first dawn of a new day
Everything hushed and cleaned by the magnificence
Of it. The sea and the heavens
Up in the sky high above the land birds soar
And look down on us
The soft and dazzling blur of houses and villages.
And our two hearts beat softly upon one another
The boats are coming nearer
And the great birds dive close in over the water
A longshoreman, seeing us, waves
And a calm breeze caresses us
A strand of your hair brushes across my cheek
In this world with you I could live forever…
Michael Reed Dorrough (2011)
