Friday, April 9, 2010

The Thought of Something Else

by Wendell Berry


1.
A spring wind blowing
the smell of the ground
through the intersections of traffic,
the mind turn, seeks a new
nativity--another place,
simpler, less weighted
by what has already been.

Another place!
it's enough to grieve me--
that old dream of going,
of becoming a better man
just by getting up and going to a better place.

2.
The mystery. The old
unaccountable folding.
The iron trees in the park
suddenly remember forests.
It becomes possible to think of going.

3.
--a place where thought
can take its shape
as quietly in the mind
as water in a pitcher,

or a man can be
safely without thought
--see the day begin
and lean back,
a simple wakefulness filling
perfectly
the spaces among the leaves.

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