Nobody Cares . . .

Nobody cares if you stop here. You can

look for hours, gaze out over the forest.

And the sounds are yours too—take away

how the wind either whispers or begins to

get ambitious. If you let the silence of

afternoon pool around you, that serenity

may last a long time, and you can take it

along. A slant sun, mornings or evenings,

will deepen the canyons, and you can carry away

that purple, how it gathers and fades for hours.

This whole world is yours, you know. You can

breathe it and think about it and dream it after this

wherever you go. It’s all right. Nobody cares.

~William Stafford