The Uncarved Blog

No Going Back
(Wendell Berry)

No, no, there is no going back.
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.

(The Sabbath Poems, 1993, I)

Just added: Wendell Berry’s stepping over stones in a stream shows us how he writes a poem and takes a stand, which contains a link to a Bill Moyers PBS profile on the poet.

Here is a National Endowment For The Humanities interview with Wendell E. Berry, Awards & Honors: 2012 Jefferson Lecturer. These poems by Walcott, O’Donohue, Hafiz, and Oliver complement Berry’s theme: Love after Love, by Derek Walcott, A Blessing of Solitude by John O’Donohue, The Root of The Rose by Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, and The Journey by Mary Oliver.

Just added another poem: The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry, with a link to On Being of him reading this poem and 5 others.

Tags: becoming more of oneself, daniel ladinsky, Derek Walcott, generous spirit, hafiz, life and death, living and dying, National Endowment For The Humanities, no going back, personal transformation, Poetry, poets, the evolving self, wendell berry, Wendell E. Berry

This entry was posted on July 29, 2014 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Other poems, Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.