The Lilies in  General   

Amid the gray trunks of ancient trees we found
the gay woodland lilies nodding on their stems,
frail and fair, so delicately balanced the air
held or moved them as it stood or moved.
The ground that slept beneath us woke in them
and made a music of the light, as it had waked
and sung in fragile things unnumbered years,
and left their kind no less symmetrical and fair
for all that time. Does my land have the health
of this, where nothing falls but into life?

By Wendell Berry

Tell Your Friends About It | Print This Poem

Comments

You should be logged in to be able to leave comments

Other poems by Wendell Berry:

• 1991-I
• 1991-II
• A Meeting
• A Warning To My Readers
• Do not be ashamed
• For The Future
• In A Motel Parking Lot, Thinking Of Dr. Williams
• In this World
• Like The Water
• Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
• Ripening
• Sabbaths 2001
• Testament
• The Country Of Marriage
• The Lilies
• The Man Born to Farming
• The peace of wild things
• The Real Work
• The Silence
• The Wish to be Generous
• Water
• What We Need Is Here
• Woods