Saturday, June 27, 2015

The Wild by Wendell Berry

In the empty lot--a place
not natural, but wild--among
the trash of human absence,

the slough and shamble
of the city's seasons, a few
old locusts bloom.

A few woods birds
fly and sing
in the new foliage

--warblers and tanagers, birds
wild as leaves; in a million
each one would be rare,

new to the eyes.  A man
couldn't make a habit
of such color,

such flight and singing.
But they're the habit of this
wasted place. In them

the ground is wise.  They are
its remembrance of what is.