Unmaking Makes The World

[SSScout 1615]

Unmaking Makes The World

                  by Wendell Berry

The year relents, and free

     Of work, I climb again

To where the old trees wait,

      Time out of mind, I hear

Traffic down on the road,

      Engines high overhead.

And then a quiet comes,

      A cleft in time, silence

      Of metal moved by fire;

The air holds little voices,

     Titmice and chickadees,

Feeding through the treetops

Among the new small leaves,

      Calling again to mind

The grace of circumstance,

     Sabbath econonmy

In which all thought is song,

     All labor is a dance.

The world is made at rest,

     In ease of gravity.

 

I hear the ancient theme

In low world-shaping song

Sung by the falling stream.

     Here where a rotting log

Has slowed the flow: a shelf

     Of dark soil, level laid

Above the tumbled stone.

     Roots fasten it in place.

     It will be here awhile;

What holds it here decays.

     A richness from above,

Brought down, is held, and holds

A little while in flow.

Stem and leaf grow from it.

     At cost of death, it has

A life. Thus falling founds,

Unmaking makes the world.

               * * *

 

Good Scouting to you all.

[prairie 10]

Thank You