poem
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.