With all the hoopla over Mozart’s birthday last month, another birthday commemoration might have gone unnoticed. Poet William Stafford was born on Jan. 17, 1914, and died 79 years later on Aug. 28, 1993.

Were he still alive, he would have been 92 — a far cry from Mozart’s 250 years, but still worthy of celebrating.

Stafford’s biographers make a point of mentioning that he didn’t begin writing poetry until later in life. His first book of poems was published when he was 46. If Mozart had waited that long before he started composing, we would have no music from him. He died at 35.

People make the same mistake with Stafford that they make with other artists. They assume he only became a creative writer when his poems were on the shelves in bookstores. It’s like telling an actor he’s an overnight success after he’s caught the public’s attention in a well-received production. That success was hardly achieved overnight. Years of hard work preceded it.

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That holds true for Stafford. He spent years observing and ruminating about the world he would later describe in his poetry. His "overnight successes" were to become the equivalent of Poet Laureate for both the United States and Oregon.

There are ardent fans of Stafford’s work who see to it that not a year goes by when he is not feted. Last Thursday night, a group of eight local poets gathered in the Hannon Library of Southern Oregon University to honor Stafford.

I was among those invited to participate and found myself in company with Dori Appel, Anna Beauchamp, Lawson Inada, Michael Jenkins, Jeannette Doob, Mitzi Miles-Kabota and Vince Wixon.

Most of these people have won prizes or other recognition for their work. Each shared a poem or two of their own and selections by Stafford. The Stafford poem I chose to read was this one:

Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me

mistakes I have made. Ask me whether

what I have done is my life. Others

have come in their slow way into

my thought, and some have tried to help

or to hurt: ask me what difference

their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.

You and I can turn and look

at the silent river and wait. We know

the current is there, hidden; and there

are comings and goings from miles away

that hold the stillness exactly before us.

What the river says, that is what I say.

And the poem of my own that I wrote for the occasion was this one:

Winter Watch

As it turns out,

neither the first Hanukkah

nor the first Christmas

happened in winter —

But they do now.

Like moths to the flame

holidays seem drawn to the Solstice.

Such is the pull of the Sun —

even in midwinter.

The Earth leans away from

this invincible,

unconquerable star —

which has held emperors in its thrall —

as if — even in December —

it is still too potent to endure.

People can’t seem to bear

too much light,

too much warmth.

We prefer to hold our festivals at night.

We celebrate Eves,

sprinkling our darkened homes, temples and chapels

with droplets of surrogate sunlight

suspended atop auspiciously placed candles.

We need the cupola of the longest night of the year

for the menorah of miracles

and the star of wonder

to shine forth and attract

the Maccabees and the Magi.

And on that flinty winter firmament,

the gods of other faiths continue to strike sparks

in the shapes of the Pleiades, Taurus and Orion,

while we cluster around our tapers

waiting for the morning and the Messiah to arrive.

What the other poets say, that is what I say. Happy birthday, Bill.