Wendell for Wednesday

Wendell was on the Writer’s Almanac yesterday on my way to work…what a great start to the day. I had a hard time going into the office instead of staying outside to enjoy “our place.”

I go by a field where once
I cultivated a few poor crops.
It is now covered with young trees,
for the forest that belongs here
has come back and reclaimed its own.
And I think of all the effort
I have wasted and all the time,
and of how much joy I took
in that failed work and how much
it taught me. For in so failing
I learned something of my place,
something of myself, and now
I welcome back the trees.

“IX.” by Wendell Berry, from Leavings. © Counterpoint Press, 2010.