Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
I may finally be getting the hang of it.
For many years I admired those words, but I could not believe that every day I had less reason not to give myself away. I had too little reason to give myself away, I thought. I needed more, not less. If I gave any of myself away there would be nothing left, at least nothing of value.
I did not get the point, which should have been obvious but was not. I took close to a lifetime to learn, and I am still learning.
But a turning has occurred: I am celebrating, not mourning loss, nor spending energy listening for signs of leavetaking. I can say "I'm home" without crossing fingers. That is no small change.
Here is the point:
Whenever I give myself away, I am more, not less. When I am fortunate enough to see even a small fragment of my gift in the hands of another, that also is more, not less. I became a psychologist and a teacher. That too is more.
If I had learned these simple facts earlier in my life, I would have caused less hurt to fewer people. That would have been more as well. Much more.
But there is no going back.
I have always loved trees. As a boy, before I wanted to be anything else, I loved to climb trees. I wanted to be a forest ranger and an architect, a designer of homes. Now perhaps I am
a sort of tree,
standing over a grave,
standing also beside and among lives that are precious to me. Those two together are why it is more now in my nature to be generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
And in the heart.
Wendell Berry has been a farmer all his life. The town of Port William is fictional, but it is not unlike Port Royal in north central Kentucky, where he was born, where his parents farmed, and their parents, for at least five generations. Wendell Berry thus writes in praise of place, knowing whereof he speaks.. His intimate geography is genuine, and genuinely intimate.
My own geography was spread over a much larger map, hither and yon, moving every two or three years, just as I was beginning to feel at home. Willing and unwilling nomad. As a child I was carried or walked with my mother, aware of my resistance but having no capacity to give it effective expression.
Later I used to say (once or twice when security or beauty beckoned, I would say out loud) , "They'll carry me out of here boots first."
But they did not. I walked out, on my own feet. If I returned later, as I sometimes did, there was no one home.
Now there appears to be grace and a sense of place to accompany the yearning. Whether that will last or not, I feel more kinship with Wendell Berry, more personally in touch with his writing, more understanding, especially of his Sabbath poems. I am grateful for that, and it is more.
Wendell Berry and his great-grandfather
Wendell Berry at home