Senses and Beyond

“...Sound is something I’m very conscious of. And maybe that’s part of the Northwest; there is a mossy, deadened sound here. So you listen more carefully—you’re an owl. You don’t have to put on earmuffs to keep from damaging your hearing. It’s nice and quiet, so you listen. But in a way that’s a metaphor too. It is an alertness of sense in a world where senses are never enough—any of the senses. I thought maybe you were going to say smell. I feel I’m really a good smeller, and I value that, although on the other hand, I look at a bloodhound and realize I’ve got a ways to go. So, whatever the senses in my poems, I am consciously aware of the limits of human beings and of the mistake we make if we assume what we are receiving is everything that’s there. I feel that we need to hear more, see more, smell more, feel more.”
~William Stafford