The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry Quotes

“The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

and once again I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“Come all ye conservatives and liberals
who want to conserve the good things and be free,
come away from the merchants of big answers,
whose hands are metalled with power;
from the union of anywhere and everywhere
by the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price
and the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price;
from the union of work and debt, work and despair;
from the wage-slavery of the helplessly well-employed.

From the union of self-gratification and self-annihilation,
secede into care for one another
and for the good gifts of Heaven and Earth.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“Whatever is singing
is found, awaiting the return
of whatever is lost.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“Another place!
it's enough to grieve me--
that old dream of going, of becoming a better man
just by getting up and going
to a better place.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems

“Be still and listen to the voices that belong
to the stream banks and the trees and the open fields.

Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman’s silence
receiving the river’s grace,
the gardener’s musing on rows.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“... To remember,
to hear and remember, is to stop
and walk on again
to a livelier, surer measure.
It is dangerous
to remember the past only
for its own sake, dangerous
to deliver a message
you did not get.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“Outside the window
is a roofed wooden tray
he fills with seeds for the birds.
They make a sort of dance
as they descend and light
and fly off at a slant
across the strictly divided
black sash. At first
they came fearfully, worried
by the man's movements
inside the room. They watched
his eyes, and flew
when he looked. Now they expect
no harm from him
and forget he's there.
They come into his vision,
unafraid. He keeps
a certain distance and quietness
in tribute to them.
That they ignore him
he takes in tribute to himself.
But they stay cautious
of each other, half afraid, unwilling
to be too close. They snatch
what they can carry and fly
into the trees. They flirt out
with tail or beak and waste
more sometimes than they eat.
And the man, knowing
the price of seed, wishes
they would take more care.
But they understand only
what is free, and he
can give only as they
will take. Thus they have
enlightened him. He buys
the seed, to make it free.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“You have taken me and quieted me.
You have been such light to me that others have been your shadows.
You come near me with the nearness of sleep.

--"Marriage", Wendell Berry”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“For everything that comes
is a gift, the meaning always
carried out of sight
to renew our whereabouts,
always a starting place.
And every gift is perfect
in its beginning, for it
is “from above, and cometh down
from the Father of lights.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“A spring wind blowing
the smell of the ground
through the intersections of traffic,
the mind turns, seeks a new
nativity- another place,
simpler, less weighted
by what has already been.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“History goes blind and in darkness,
neither sees nor is seen, nor is
known except as a carrion
marked with unintelligible wounds;
dragging its dead body, living,
yet to be born, it moves heavily
to its glories. It tramples the little towns,
forgets their names.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“But in his dream he knew their way
was prepared, and in their time
they would rise up joyful.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“Look in
and see him looking out.
He is not always
quiet, but there have been times
when happiness has come
to him, unasked,
like the stillness on the water
that holds the evening clear
while it subsides
- and he let go
what he was not.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

“It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.”
― Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems