Wendell Berry (1934 - 2026)
I have never read Wendall Berry’s poetry.
I have never followed his writing, followed his philosophy.
I have truly missed a “gentle giant.”
And so I shall begin with one poem, one day, one seeking......
His death this week has instilled a yearning in me to know more as I read about him.
Coupled with Dolly Parton’s death, both artists loved their home place, their home state and were raised with Christian values.
A wonderful article linked below extolls Berry’s desire for a simple agrarian lifestyle.
I quote one paragraph:
The beloved writer and environmentalist, who died at age 92 on Monday, Aug. 31, in his Kentucky home, was an academic himself but left the ivory tower for his home county of Henry, Kentucky. There, he farmed and wrote for most of his life, mostly with pencil and paper in an old family cabin.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/wendell-berry-writer-and-farmer-was-extolled-many-modern-day-prophet
Today’s selection honoring Wendall Barry:
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/peace-wild-things-0/
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