i would not have been a poet
except that i have been in love
alive in this mortal world,
or an essayist except that i
have been bewildered and afraid,
or a storyteller had i not heard
stories passing to me through the air,
or a writer at all except
i have been wakeful at night
and words have come to me
out of their deep caves
needing to be remembered.
but on the days i am lucky
or blessed, i am silent.
i go into the one body
that two make in making marriage
that for all our trying, all
our deaf-and-dumb of speech,
has no tongue. or i give myself
to gravity, light, and air
and am carried back
to solitary work in fields
and woods, where my hands
rest upon a world unnamed,
complete, unanswerable, and final
as our daily bread and meat.
the way of love leads all ways
to life beyond words, silent
and secret. to serve that triumph
i have done all the rest.

wendell berry

 

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