Finally
Finally will it not be enough,
after much living, after
much love, after much dying
of those you have loved,
to sit on the porch near sundown
with your eyes simply open,
watching the wind shape the clouds
into the shape of clouds?
Even then you will remember
the history of love, shaped
in the shape of flesh, everchanging
as the clouds that pass, the blessed
yearning of body for body,
unending light.
You will remember, watching
the clouds, the future of love.
- Wendell Berry
Finally will it not be enough,
after much living, after
much love, after much dying
of those you have loved,
to sit on the porch near sundown
with your eyes simply open,
watching the wind shape the clouds
into the shape of clouds?
Even then you will remember
the history of love, shaped
in the shape of flesh, everchanging
as the clouds that pass, the blessed
yearning of body for body,
unending light.
You will remember, watching
the clouds, the future of love.
- Wendell Berry
Finally, it will be enough for me when I know our elders are not locked inside the halls of nursing homes, never to sit outside on a porch at sundown to look and remember again. Finally, it will be enough for me when I know that each one of us will be where we want to be at sundown.
2 comments:
in one of those moments where all of the thoughts in my head did not leave enough energy for my eyes to accurately percieve the world, i read the first line of this poem as "Finally it will not be enough..." As I read the verse, it seemed so pretty and so horrifically depressing, until I reached the ? at the end, and the innapropriate punctuation sent me stumbling, confused back to the beginning of the verse, where I was gratefully consoled by the fact that it may, indeed "be enough."
-stacey
Amen!
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