Wendell Berry, farmer, poet, novelist and essayist died his past Monday at the age of 92. His New York Times obituary does justice to the gifted man he was. Rather than repeat details available in his obituary, I’d like to share who first introduced me to Berry.

In her inscription in Sabbaths, Judy shared that one of her favorites was “I”. It became one of my favorites, too.

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

Truth be told, many of his essays (with the exception of one of my favorites –“Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer”) and even some of his poetry were too sophisticated and oblique for me. But I admired his brand of Christianity (“love all who suffer”) and his willingness to speak out against aggressive nationalism:

“All that patriotism requires, and all that it can be, is eagerness to maintain intact and incorruptible the founding principles of the nation, and to preserve undiminished the land and the people.”

His most famous poem is undoubtedly “The Peace of Wild Things.” Although I have posted that poem here a couple of times, I post it once more in his honor:

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.

Finally, if you ever come to my home, you might notice a small index card tucked away in every room, like this one in my kitchen:

Affixed to every card are these words from Berry’s “Our Real Work” in Standing by Words:

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.

I see these words all the time and they help to awaken and heal my often baffled and impeded soul.

Thank you and rest in peace, Wendell Berry.