New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry Page B

here
    like the water
    of the hill
    that fills each
    opening it
    comes to, to leave
    with a sound
    that is a part
    of local speech.

THE GATHERING
    At my age my father
    held me on his arm
    like a hooded bird,
    and his father held him so.
    Now I grow into brotherhood
    with my father as he
    with his has grown,
    time teaching me
    his thoughts in my own.
    Now he speaks in me
    as when I knew him first,
    as his father spoke
    in him when he had come
    to thirst for the life
    of a young son. My son
    will know me in himself
    when his son sits hooded on
    his arm and I have grown
    to be brother to all
    my fathers, memory
    speaking to knowledge,
    finally, in my bones.

A HOMECOMING
    One faith is bondage. Two
    are free. In the trust
    of old love, cultivation shows
    a dark graceful wilderness
    at its heart. Wild
    in that wilderness, we roam
    the distances of our faith,
    safe beyond the bounds
    of what we know. O love,
    open. Show me
    my country. Take me home.

THE MAD FARMER’S LOVE SONG
    O when the world’s at peace
    and every man is free
    then will I go down unto my love.
    O and I may go down
    several times before that.

TESTAMENT
    And now to the Abbyss I pass
    Of that unfathomable Grass…
1.
    Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath
    Grows large and free in air, don’t call it death—
    A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire
    His surly art of imitating life; conspire
    Against him. Say that my body cannot now
    Be improved upon; it has no fault to show
    To the sly cosmetician. Say that my flesh
    Has a perfection in compliance with the grass
    Truer than any it could have striven for.
    You will recognize the earth in me, as before
    I wished to know it in myself: my earth
    That has been my care and faithful charge from birth,
    And toward which all my sorrows were surely bound,
    And all my hopes. Say that I have found
    A good solution, and am on my way
    To the roots. And say I have left my native clay
    At last, to be a traveler; that too will be so.
    Traveler to where? Say you don’t know.
2.
    But do not let your ignorance
    Of my spirit’s whereabouts dismay
    You, or overwhelm your thoughts.
    Be careful not to say
    Anything too final. Whatever
    Is unsure is possible, and life is bigger
    Than flesh. Beyond reach of thought
    Let imagination figure
    Your hope. That will be generous
    To me and to yourselves. Why settle
    For some know-it-all’s despair
    When the dead may dance to the fiddle
    Hereafter, for all anybody knows?
    And remember that the Heavenly soil
    Need not be too rich to please
    One who was happy in Port Royal.
    I may be already heading back,
    A new and better man, toward
    That town. The thought’s unreasonable,
    But so is life, thank the Lord!
3.
    So treat me, even dead,
    As a man who has a place
    To go, and something to do
    Don’t muck up my face
    With wax and powder and rouge
    As one would prettify
    An unalterable fact
    To give bitterness the lie.
    Admit the native earth
    My body is and will be,
    Admit its freedom and
    Its changeability.
    Dress me in the clothes
    I wore in the day’s round.
    Lay me in a wooden box.
    Put the box in the ground.
4.
    Beneath this stone a Berry is planted
    In his home land, as he wanted.
    He has come to the gathering of his kin,
    Among whom some were worthy men,
    Farmers mostly, who lived by hand,
    But one was a cobbler from Ireland,
    Another played the eternal fool
    By riding on a circus mule
    To be remembered in grateful laughter
    Longer than the rest. After
    Doing what they had to do
    They are at ease here. Let all of you
    Who yet for pain find force and voice
    Look on their peace, and rejoice.

THE CLEAR DAYS
    for Allen Tate
    The dogs of indecision
    Cross and cross the field of vision.
    A cloud, a buzzing fly
    Distract the lover’s eye.
    Until the heart has found
    Its native piece of ground
    The day withholds its light,
    The eye must stray unlit.
    The ground’s the body’s bride,
    Who will not be denied.
    Not until all is given
    Comes