Poetry Club #7: The Wild Geese by Wendell Berry

And an intermission in Poetry Club for Book Club

We are going to be taking a little intermission from Poetry Club after this week in order to head back to book club territory. Exciting for those who like book club, sad perhaps for those who enjoy poetry club. But I like the mix in rhythm!

More on that next week. This week is another community poem (if you have a poem that deeply moves you, I’d love to hear from you and would be delighted to share it in the next bout of poetry club).

Belinda, living in the land down under, suggested this poem after I capitulated that summer has begun to lose its confident footing on this northern hemisphere and is coming her way. She shared the poem with the following note:

“I appreciate Berry’s poem for its Autumnal tone and imagery, the reminder of the importance of preparation as we head inward (in the best sense), and of course, the pertinent reminder inherent in the last two lines.”

I'm looking forward to spending some time with this poem as I head off to Kerry for a couple of days hiking and camping with some friends and a couple of lads from the next generation.

The Wild Geese by Wendell Berry

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

Canadian Geese (1895 ) by Frank Weston Benson (image via Wikimedia: Public Domain)