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Poetry for Transformation: Wendell Berry

 

The Peace of Wild Things (excerpt)

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For the time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

(from "The Peace of Wild Things")

 


 

A Timbered Choir (excerpt)

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet around me

like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places where I left them

asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes

and lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me

and the fear of me leaves it.

It sings and I hear its song.

Than what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it

and the fear of it leaves me.

It sings and I hear its song.

 


 

It may be that when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work,

and when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey.

 


 

The Clear Days (excerpt)

The dogs of indecision

Cross and cross the field of vision.

A cloud, a buzzing fly

Distract the lover's eye.

Until the heart has found

Its native piece of ground

The day withholds its light,

The eye must stray unlit.

The ground's the body's bride,

Who will not be denied.

Not until all is given

Comes the thought of heaven.

When the mind's an empty room

The clear days come.

 

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