It helps too to know
that the ground where you stand
is not different at root
from the parcel of land
you are pleased to call home.
Wherever you are
is a suitable place
to be found hard at work
by a god full of grace
when work is your reward —
to bound like a boy,
full of stories to tell,
drawing laughter on up
from your eyes like a well,
your face creased with joy.
Are the falls worth it?
If you like that sort of thing —
descent, water, rest
What the green–stemmed cup-of-dainty knows
is evanescence. Here tomorrow or
not the same small rule obtains: to grow
unnoticed in the shadows of the more
likely hillsides of the earth, and wait
for heavy humid breezes to bring rain.
for Dad on Father’s Day
Your blessed economy,
Beloved sufficiency
Upon a small, dear place,
Sings with the morning stars.
Wendell Berry
In quiet hours underneath
the branches of the Lord’s own oak
and pine, you step while others sleep
into the world, awoken by
the barest dawn to tend to what
you love. The wildflowers dyed
in summer blue need water, and
the pecan, pear, and apple trees.
The grass needs trimming in the back
behind the bushes you have grown
to love more for their beauty than
their berries. Here you are at home:
where in the morning when the dew
has yet to rise the only sound is of
your steps, of windblown lilac blooms,
of early birds above your head
and honeybees about their work:
where everything is what it says
it is. There’s earth to add onto
the compost pile. There’s hay to haul,
and floors to sweep, and fence to move.
To do it all would take you more
than all the days the world has known,
and longer than you can afford
to spend alone — the dog must be
around here somewhere, quick to help
and quick to play, to make you see
the pleasure held in being day
by day of use to what has need
of you. And so again you wake
to dig up weeds, and throw seeds down,
to make your coffee and without
a sound to step out of the house
and go about your morning chores.
You feed the animals you keep.
You tend the pasture. And, of course,
you plant new trees: because what can
the Lord require of you but that
you furnish rooms and gardens in
the house of every love; and hold
your days in tenderness as best
you can; and make the world a home.
Allow your mind to wander. Not
too long, and not too far away:
the task at hand requires just
as much attention as you give
it, but it isn’t helped by too
much thinking. Sit or stand before
the basket, back straight, breathing from
your diaphragm, and wait until
the pattern of the pile appeals
to you. Exhale. Inhale. Begin.
Pick up the shirt or shorts that are
the closest to you, or you like
the best, or wrinkle easiest,
and fold them first: in half, then thirds,
or halves and halves again along
convenient seams. When fabric wants
to lie a certain way, allow
it — coax, but never force, a fold
that does not want to be. Repeat
until the pile finds its shape.
Leave the socks for last, when there
is nowhere they can hide from you.
While pairing like with like, reflect
upon the symmetry of work
well done: if only for a time
much shorter than the trivial
perfectionist in us would like,
to fold an errant sleeve in place
can bring a kind of order to
the world, for this one week at least.
It’s frustrating, isn’t it,
how beautiful the thistle flower is.
You spend all morning shoveling
up foot by foot the monstrous roots, grappling
with uncompassionately barbed
green branches, some as long as your arm,
that afternoon to see the one
you missed still standing upright like a Hun
on horseback after battle, cheeks
flushed pink with victory, opposed to neat
solutions: and to know this poor
remainder of a flower will win the war.