7/16/2020 At the Bomb Testing Site by William E.

Stafford | Poetry Foundation

At the Bomb Testing Site

B Y W I L L I A M E . S TA F F O R D

At noon in the desert a panting lizard

waited for history, its elbows tense,
watching the curve of a particular road
as if something might happen.

It was looking at something farther off

than people could see, an important scene
acted in stone for little selves
at the flute end of consequences.

There was just a continent without much on it

under a sky that never cared less.
Ready for a change, the elbows waited.
The hands gripped hard on the desert.

William Stafford, “At the Bomb Testing Site” from Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems. Copyright © 1960 by William

Stafford. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org.

Source: The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems (Graywolf Press, 1998)

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