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The Farm on the Great Plains

By William E. Stafford 1914–1993

A telephone line goes cold;

birds tread it wherever it goes.

A farm back of a great plain

tugs an end of the line.

I call that farm every year,

ringing it, listening, still;

no one is home at the farm,

the line gives only a hum.

Some years I will ring the line

on a night at last the right one,

and with an eye tapered for braille

from the phone on the wall

I will see the tenant who waits—

the last one left at the place;

through the dark my braille eye

will lovingly touch his face.

“Hello, is Mother at home?”

No one is home today.

“But Father—he should be there.”

No one—no one is here.

“But you—are you the one . . . ?”

Then the line will be gone

because both ends will be home:

no space, no birds, no farm.

My self will be the plain,

wise as winter is gray,

pure as cold posts go

pacing toward what I know.

William Stafford, “The Farm on the Great Plains” from The Way It Is: New & Selected Poems. Copyright © 1998 by William Stafford. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: Poetry (January 1958).

Biography

"If you have been wondering where the articulate, readable poems have gone in the last third of the 20th century, you might start with [William] Stafford," declares Victor Howes of the Christian Science Monitor. A pacifist and one of "the quiet of the land," as he often describes himself, Stafford is known for his unique method of composition, his soft-spoken voice, and his independence from social and literary expectations. As

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