I Go Among Trees

Faithful readers,

In the spirit of New Content Monday (although I'm sure for some of our readers with a keenly developed sense of danger, it's always New Content Monday), I have decided to share a favorite poem of mine: I Go Among Trees by Wendell Berry.  

I go among trees and sit still.

All my stirring becomes quiet

around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes

and lives a while in my sight.

What it fears in me leaves me,

and the fear of me leaves it.

It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.

I live for a while in its sight.

What I fear in it leaves it,

and the fear of it leaves me.

It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,

mute in my consternations,

I hear my song at last,

and I sing it. As we sing,

the day turns, the trees move.

I won't bore you with a long explication, but I've always loved this particular poem.  The wilderness has always been a source of renewal and vitality, and I don't think anyone understands this quite as well as Wendell Berry (the agrarian of agrarians--look him up!).  Only after listening to the song of the wilderness is the speaker able to understand and know himself.  

Zach's and my college fraternity brothers often adventure into the great outdoors, and this poem strikes a sentimental chord for me.  Being connected to nature is extraordinarily important, for reasons I don't even completely understand yet.  So... after signing up for Whiskey Before Breakfast email updates... get out there!  

"One impulse from a vernal wood/ Can teach you more of man,/ of moral evil and of good,/ Then all the sages can."  

~Spence