"The Lilies" by Wendell Berry

Yellow Trout Lilies (Erythronium americanum)*

Hunting them, a man must sweat, bear

the whine of a mosquito in his ear,

grow thirsty, tired, despair perhaps

of ever finding them, walk a long way.

He must give himself over to chance,

for they live beyond prediction.

He must give himself over to patience,

for they live beyond will. He must be led

along the hill as by a prayer.

If he finds them anywhere, he will find

a few, paired on their stalks,

at ease in the air as souls in bliss.

I found them here at first without hunting,

by grace, as all beauties are first found.

I have hunted and not found them here.

Found, unfound, they breathe their light

into the mind, year after year.

"The Lilies" by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint, 2012.

*The yellow (Erythronium americanum) and white (E. albidum) Trout lilies are synonymous with early spring ephemeral woodland wildflowers. These small (4 - 6" tall) members of the lily family can put on quite a show when a cluster of them is in full flower. These lilies take seven years to mature and when mature have two mottled basal leaves. The flowers have six tepals (three sepals and three petals) and open during the day (to the extent that they are recurved when fully open) and close at night (to protect the pollen on the showy reddish or yellow anthers.) These are deep-rooted plants and roots can go 8" deep and highly organic or sandy-loam soils are required for these species to thrive. Because these plants flower so early (often in March) the leaves disappear often by the first of May.

Trout lilies are often called Fawn lilies (due to the mottled or spotted leaves and the appearance that resembles a fawn's ears) or Dog-tooth violets because the corms supposedly resemble a dog's tooth and the flowers resemble violets. The name Trout lily is given because of the mottled leaves and the blooming of the flowers during trout fishing season. It is sometimes called Adder's tongue because of the tongue-like flower shape of the flowering shoot as it emerges in the spring and resembles the open mouth of a snake. Both species are found across the state of Kentucky and are common. Supposedly the corm is edible and tastes like a cucumber.

By Dr. Thomas Barnes, from Kentucky Native Plant and Wildlife.

"Look It Over" by Wendell Berry

From "The Sagebrush Sea" on Nature. Watch it HERE.

I leave behind even

my walking stick. My knife

is in my pocket, but that

I have forgot. I bring

no car, no cell phone,

no computer, no camera,

no CD player, no fax, no

TV, not even a book. I go

into the woods. I sit on

a log provided at no cost.

It is the earth I’ve come to,

the earth itself, sadly

abused by the stupidity

only humans are capable of

but, as ever, itself. Free.

A bargain! Get it while it lasts.

"Look It Over" by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint Press, 2012.

"The Vacation" by Wendell Berry

"Little Red Fishing Boat, No. 1" by Ann Steer

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.

He went flying down the river in his boat

with his video camera to his eye, making

a moving picture of the moving river

upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly

toward the end of his vacation. He showed

his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,

preserving it forever: the river, the trees,

the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat

behind which he stood with his camera

preserving his vacation even as he was having it

so that after he had had it he would still

have it. It would be there. With a flick

of a switch, there it would be. But he

would not be in it. He would never be in it.

"The Vacation" by Wendell Berry from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint Press, 2012.

"The Summer Ends" by Wendell Berry

"Fall Plowing" by Grant Wood, 1931

The summer ends, and it is time
To face another way. Our theme
Reversed, we harvest the last row
To store against the cold, undo
The garden that will be undone.
We grieve under the weakened sun
To see all earth's green fountains dried,
And fallen all the works of light.
You do not speak, and I regret
This downfall of the good we sought
As though the fault were mine. I bring
The plow to turn the shattering
Leaves and bent stems into the dark,
From which they may return. At work,
I see you leaving our bright land,
The last cut flowers in your hand.

"The Summer Ends" by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir. © Counterpoint Press, 1999. 

Happy Birthday, Wendell

                     Wendell Berry, 80 years old today.

VII

by Wendell Berry

Again I resume the long
lesson: how small a thing
can be pleasing, how little
in this hard world it takes
to satisfy the mind
and bring it to its rest.

Within the ongoing havoc
the woods this morning is
almost unnaturally still.
Through stalled air, unshadowed
light, a few leaves fall
of their own weight.

                      The sky
is gray. It begins in mist
almost at the ground
and rises forever. The trees
rise in silence almost
natural, but not quite,
almost eternal, but
not quite.

                      What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be. Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest, even
to the slightest of His works,
a yellow leaf slowly
falling, and is pleased.

"VII" by Wendell Berry from This Day. © Counterpoint Press, 2013. 

"May Song" by Wendell Berry

Photo: "Weeds in the Rubble" by Jenny Brighton

For whatever is let go
there's a taker.
The living discovers itself

where no preparation
was made for it,
where its only privilege

is to live if it can.
The window flies from the dark
of the subway mouth

into the sunlight
stained with the green
of the spring weeds

that crowd the improbable
black earth
of the embankment,

their stout leaves
like the tongues and bodies
of a herd, feeding

on the new heat,
drinking at the seepage
of the stones:

the freehold of life,
triumphant
even in the waste

of those who possess it.
But it is itself the possessor,
we know at last,

seeing it send out weeds
to take back
whatever is left.

Proprietor, pasturing foliage
on the rubble,
making use

of the useless--a beauty
we have less than not
deserved.

"May Song" by Wendell Berry, from New Collected Poems.
© Counterpoint Press, 2012.

"The Real Work," by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

"The Real Work" by Wendell Berry, from Standing by Words. © 1983.

____________________

I fly fish because I need to keep myself grounded in reality; in other words, to keep my humanity in perspective with the beauty, simplicity, authenticity, and grace of the natural world. I read Wendell Berry for the same reason.

Sunday was his birthday. This brief biography appeared on The Writer's Almanac:

Today is the birthday of the man who said, "Don't own so much clutter that you will be relieved to see your house catch fire." That's writer Wendell Berry (books by this author), born in Henry County, Kentucky (1934), the son of a lawyer and tobacco farmer. His ancestors on both sides farmed the county for five generations. After going off to college and teaching creative writing in the Bronx for a couple of years, Berry joined that lineage, purchasing a 125-acre homestead near the birthplace of his parents, where he still farms and writes poetry, novels, and essays. From his outpost, Berry tackles the intersection of civic life and the natural world, writing that "essential wisdom accumulates in the community much as fertility builds in the land."

His eight novels, including Jayber Crow (2000) and Hannah Coulter (2004), together with his many short stories, form a saga of a small fictional Kentucky town called Port William. Through the lives of the townspeople, Berry explores the costs of war, the effects of farm policy, and the challenges and pleasures of community.

Berry wrote: "The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it."

And: "Every day do something that won't compute [...] Give your approval to all you cannot understand [...] Ask the questions which have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years [...] Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts [...] Practice resurrection."

Here is a link to another more extensive biography on the website of The National Endowment for the Humanities.