“What I stand for is what I stand on.” — Wendell Berry
I love the playful music in this brilliant little poem by Wendell Berry from Leavings: Poems. As if imitating the sounds and poetry of nature, Berry’s stepping over stones in a flowing stream demonstrates his own creative flow, the way he uses words to show us how he writes a poem, and takes a stand for nature and his place in it.
The Book of Camp Branch
How much delight I’ve known
in navigating down the flow
by stepping stones, by sounding
stones, by words that are
stepping and sounding stones.
Going down stone by stone,
the song of the water changes,
changing the way I walk
which changes my thought
as I go. Stone to stone
the stream flows. Stone to stone
the walker goes. The words
stand stone still until
the flow moves them, changing
the sound – a new word –
a new place to step or stand.
Here’s another of his poems I posted: Wendell Berry’s “No going back” is about the generosity of the evolving self through time.
For more on this environmental legend and writer, see Wendell Berry: Poet and Prophet. Produced by Bill Moyers, it aired on PBS 10/03/13.
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.
The Uncarved Blog 