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Monuments for a Friendly Girl at a Tenth Grade Party

By William E. Stafford 1914–1993

The only relics left are those long

spangled seconds our school clock chipped out

when you crossed the social hall

and we found each other alive,

by our glances never to accept our town's

ways, torture for advancement,

nor ever again be prisoners by choice.

Now I learn you died

serving among the natives of Garden City,

Kansas, part of a Peace Corps

before governments thought of it.

Ruth, over the horizon your friends eat

foreign chaff and have addresses like titles,

but for you the crows and hawks patrol

the old river. May they never

forsake you, nor you need monuments

other than this I make, and the one

I hear clocks chip in that world we found.

William Stafford, “Monuments for a Friendly Girl at a Tenth Grade Party” from Stories That Could Be True (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). Copyright © 1977 by William Stafford. Reprinted with the permission of Kim Stafford.

Source: Poetry (January 1967).

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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