by Wendell Berry<\/p>\n
1.<\/p>\n
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
\nof the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs,
\nof birds opening around you as you walk.
\nYou are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.<\/p>\n
2.<\/p>\n
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
\nthat bound me to you, some mere promise
\nor, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
\nA man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
\nstill and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
\nlike the earth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s empowering brew rising
\nin root and branch, the words of a dream of you
\nI did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
\nwho feels the solace of his native land
\nunder his feet again and moving in his blood.
\nI went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
\nmy track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
\nthat lay before me, but only the level ground.<\/p>\n
3.<\/p>\n
Sometimes our life reminds me
\nof a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
\nand in that opening a house,
\nan orchard and garden,
\ncomfortable shades, and flowers
\nred and yellow in the sun, a pattern
\nmade in the light for the light to return to.
\nThe forest is mostly dark, its ways
\nto be made anew day after day, the dark
\nricher than the light and more blessed,
\nprovided we stay brave
\nenough to keep on going in.<\/p>\n
4.<\/p>\n
How many times have I come to you out of my head
\nwith joy, if ever a man was,
\nfor to approach you I have given up the light
\nand all directions. I come to you
\nlost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
\ninto the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend<\/p>\n
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
\nin you, when I arrive at last.<\/p>\n
5.<\/p>\n
Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
\nof my love and work for yours, so much for so much
\nof an expendable fund. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what its limits are\u00e2\u20ac\u201d
\nthat puts it in the dark. We are more together
\nthan we know, how else could we keep on discovering
\nwe are more together than we thought?
\nYou are the known way leading always to the unknown,
\nand you are the known place to which the unknown is always
\nleading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
\nI possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
\nnot belittled by my saying that I possess it.
\nEven an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
\na man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
\naccept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
\nenough to live, and then accepts the dark,
\npassing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
\nhave fallen time and again from the great strength
\nof my desire, helpless, into your arms.<\/p>\n
6.<\/p>\n
What I am learning to give you is my death
\nto set you free of me, and me from myself
\ninto the dark and the new light. Like the water
\nof a deep stream, love is always too much. We
\ndid not make it. Though we drink till we burst
\nwe cannot have it all, or want it all.
\nIn its abundance it survives our thirst.
\nIn the evening we come down to the shore
\nto drink our fill, and sleep, while it
\nflows through the regions of the dark.
\nIt does not hold us, except we keep returning
\nto its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
\nwilling to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.<\/p>\n
7.<\/p>\n
I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
\ncontaining darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
\nI give you the life I have let live for love of you:
\na clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
\nthe young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
\nthat we have planted in this ground, as I
\nhave planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
\nbeautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
\nagain and again, and satisfy\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand this poem,
\nno more mine than any man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s who has loved a woman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Wendell Berry 1. I dream of you walking at night along the streams of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs, of birds opening around you as you walk. You are holding in your body the … Continue reading