Two images stay with me having recently read Wendell Berry’s Given book of poems. An older man, after a snow, comes to his wife’s grave and wishes he could lift the snow like a blanket and join his wife as if climbing into bed. “But he is not her husband now./ To participate in resurrection, one/ first must be dead. And he goes/ back into the whitened world, alive.” This, from "The Rejected Husband".
The other image is of trees standing patiently in just the place where they were put by God. Then, this poem, "IX" in the Sabbaths 2000 series, turns the image upon man: "I stand and wait for prayer/ To come and find me here."
Robert Frost comes to mind, reading these poems from Berry. That may not be such a profound thought given that I just discovered a blurb from his publisher that says the same (along with a comparison to William Carlos Williams). Frost and Berry both write about nature and eternity -- but don't all poets! (I leave it for someone else to sort out how the Christological orientation of Berry's poems separate them from Frost's.)
Lastly, given the character of this blog, I can't ignore Berry's "How to be a Poet". "Stay away from screens," he says -- uh oh, reader! Craft, place and silence are the poem's themes, in that order. Poems are, it concludes (itself included, I suppose), "like prayers prayed back to the one who prays."
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