A Little Wendell Berry For Your Day…

An old man, who has been on many days

a man of the woods, has come again

to this place where three streams join, where

once he sat in his pleasure under the tall trees

and the world’s light shone from every leaf,

where now a great wind has blown, and he

alone is still upright, his old companions

all broken and brought down. It is the place

of endings he has come to, of the world’s end

that is always near, always here. “Farewell,”

he says, “Welcome,” he says. For it is the place

also of the world’s beginning, ever here, for here

there is again a living darkness underfoot,

a small wind is moving farther into time, and here

he is, astir among the fallen.

This poem is from his book of poetry, Given. 

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