If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it...
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides...
The river will run
clear, as we will never know it...
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields...
Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its reality.
Wendell Berry, Work Song Part II, A Vision
2 comments:
Beautiful poem. But at times when hardship is harder than usual, I feel as if I were a single leaf instead of a tree. Pretty picture. Those wooded mountains look very similar to ours in Japan.
I always enjoy Wendell Berry - this poem is especially meaningful - the place where we live was logged flat in the 1800's now it is heavily wooded. The abundance of this place..."
Your charming photo makes me long to grab a rain jacket and head out for a long walk :=)
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