Wednesday, March 22, 2006


Spring poem....I read this every year on the first day of spring. It's a poem by Wendell Berry that I wrote down in a journal I got for Christmas in 1991....So, officially a couple of days late, I now read it again......

At the start of spring, I open a trench
in the ground. I put into it
the winter's accumulation of paper,
pages I do not want to read,
again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the sun, growth of the ground,
finished with one of their journeys.

To the sky, to the wind, then,
to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my own luck,
have listened to too much noise;
have been inattentive to wonders;
have lusted after praise.

And then upon the gathered refuse
of mind and body, I close the trench,
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal,
the old escapes into the new.

~Wendell Berry

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