Come for me now, World—
whatever is near, come close.
I have been over the water
and lived there all alone.

—William Stafford (1914–1993)
excerpt from “Looking Across the River” in “The Darkness Around Us Is Deep”

•••

It’s time to re-enter the world
knowing it will not look or feel or smell
the same as it did when you left it,

orbiting, as you have, in an unrecognizable
space of neither here nor there—or
there nor here. The world has come

for you, calling you back, wanting
your voice, your personhood, to travel
through the void, across the water,

to no longer be alone. You are not
convinced, content to linger in that
amorphous space, without pattern

or structure, lacking definite form.
But you are of definite form, and you
are needed in the world, no matter

how much you tell yourself that you
are not. Welcome back from your journey.
You have much to share as you land

feet first, wobbling a bit, then finding
your balance, setting off with one step,
then another, and another,

into whatever glorious surprise awaits.