The Wish to be Generous in  General   

ALL that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

By Wendell Berry

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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