Solitary people don't
have relationships;
they are quite unrelatable.
If you and I were capable
of being altogether house-trained and made jolly,
we should be nicer people,
but not writers.
~ Elizabeth Bowen
WHAT WE NEED IS HERE
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
by Wendell Berry
HER FIRST CALF
Her fate seizes her and brings her
down. She is heavy with it. It
wrings her. The great weight
is heaved out of her. It eases.
She moves into what she has become,
Sure in her fate now
as a fish free in the current.
She turns to the calf who has broken
out of the womb's water and its veil.
He breathes. She licks his wet hair.
He gathers his legs under him
and rises. He stands, and his legs
wobble. After the months
of his pursuit of her, now
they meet face to face.
From the beginnings of the world
his arrival and her welcome
have been prepared. They have always
known each other.
by Wendell Berry, from Collected Poems (North Point Press).
Love/Life Poems
