Calling Each Other Into Being

I spent the day with Wendell Berry, essayist, poet, activist and Kentucky farmer. No, not in the flesh, but with his words and his love for the land. Why?  Well, he's been crossing my mind now and again, his way of looking at life, his way of being in it. It's something I strive for, wish to emulate, on many different levels. And, as is so often the case, Life has a way of leading me right where I need to be. This time it was a bookstore.

One of my favorites is here in Moab, called Back of Beyond. It carries a thoughtful selection of books, both new and used. I stop in whenever I visit and always find something interesting, something that revitalizes and sustains me. Yesterday, I thought I went there to look for a book a friend had recommended,  How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, by Michael Gelb. I didn't find it. I found something else. It was quietly calling my name from the slim, divine stacks of the poetry section.

It was a little book of poems by Wendell Berry called, The Wheel. I opened it to a couple of lines that grabbed me by the lapels of my heart and wouldn't let go. I knew I had to have it. Though published in 1982, the printed price was suspiciously low and so I took it to the register to ask her about it. She showed me, in pencil on the inside cover, the actual price. And why.  On the title page, under his name, was his personal signature. A signed copy. Needless to say, it came home with me.

Today, I spent some time with it, savoring certain lines, reminding myself why I love the land, its inherent beauty and goodness, the simplicity of life it offers, and why loving the land is really no different than loving a spouse, a parent, a child, a sibling, or a dear friend. It offers fine companionship, open and honest communication, and a sense of place that sometimes seems hard to come by in a world of 7 billion people.

As we move in, around, and through each others lives, the land gives shape and form, provides contentment,  "in the sweet enclosure of the song."

The Wheel
For Robert Penn Warren

At the first strokes of the fiddle bow
the dancers rise from their seats.
The dance begins to shape itself
in the crowd, as couples join,
and couples join couples, their movement
together lightening their feet.
They move in the ancient circle
of the dance. The dance and the song
call each other into being. Soon
they are one - rapt in a single
rapture, so that even the night
has its clarity, and time
is the wheel that brings it round.

In this rapture the dead return.
Sorrow is gone from them.
They are light. They step
into the steps of the living
and turn with them in the dance
in the sweet enclosure
of the song, and timeless
is the wheel that brings it round.

~ Wendell Berry