Spring Cloud Wave Over Mount Sentinel - Missoula, Montana

"And so there we all were on a little wave of time lifting up to eternity, and none of us ever in time would know what to make of it. How could we? It is a mystery, for we are eternal beings living in time."  -Wendell Berry, from Jayber Crow, p. 205

Freshest Blooming - My Neighbour’s Spring Crocus, Missoula, Montana

“And then the light changed, and the vegetation of the ground. It was April and the freshest flowers of the year were blooming under the trees.” - from Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, p. 351

The Road To Town - Missoula, Montana

“Some of the changes in my life were imposed, and some were chosen - if by "chosen ” I may mean that I chose what I seemed already to have been chosen by, desire having obscured the alternatives. And each change has been a birth, each having taken me to a new life from which I could not go back. 

And I have asked myself, "Would I have known such births if, from Pigeonville or Lexington, I had taken one of the paths by which people get somewhere and make something of themselves? " But of course I have no answer.”

-from Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, p.299

Will-lessly Fall - Missoula, Montana

"Will-lessly the leaves fall,
are blown, 

 

coming at last
to the ground and to their rest.

 
Among them in their coming down

 
purposely the birds pass..."

 

-From This Day collection by Wendell Berry

 

(Blissfully read the full poem here...) 

 

Still Water Lily Pads - Placid Lake, Montana

"....I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water...."

-from The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

(Listen here - even repeatedly, as I did! - to the author read this dose of utter loveliness and calm. I try not to gush, but Wendell Berry is SO gush-worthy...)

Wild Rose (always my favourite!) - Missoula, Montana

"…suddenly you flare in my sight, / a wild rose blooming at the edge / of thicket, grace and light...

and once more I am blessed, choosing / again what I chose before."

 - from The Wild Rose by Wendell Berry

 

Haystack - Missoula, Montana

"...The word agriculture, after all ... means "cultivation of land." And cultivation is at the root of the sense both of culture and of cult. The ideas of tillage and worship are thus joined in culture. And these words all come from an Indo-European root meaning both "to revolve" and "to dwell." To live, to survive on the earth, to care for the soil, and to worship, all are bound at the root to the idea of a cycle. " (pg. 285, The Use of Energy)

- Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essayst

Writing On The Wall - Downtown Alley, Missoula, Montana

"I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God."

- Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Horse Pasture - Grantsdale, Montana

"But through all changes so far, the farm had endured. Its cycles of cropping and grazing, thought and work, were articulations of its wish to cohere and to last. The farm, so to speak, desired all of its lives to flourish.

Athey was not exactly, or not only, what is called a "landowner." He was the farm's farmer, but also its creature and belonging. He lived its life, and it lived his; he knew that, of the two lives, his was meant to be the smaller and the shorter."  

- Wendell Berry, from Jayber Crow

Like Snow - Missoula, Montana

Like Snow

Suppose we did our work

like the snow, quietly, quietly,

leaving nothing out.

  ~  Wendell Berry in Leavings: Poems

Garden Rain - Missoula, Montana

“The river and the garden have been the foundations of my economy here. Of the two I have liked the river best. It is wonderful to have the duty of being on the river the first and last thing every day. I have loved it even in the rain. Sometimes I have loved it most in the rain.” - Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

Red - Missoula, Montana

"...Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still..."

- from Grace by Wendell Berry

Berry Berry - Missoula, Montana

“Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.” - Wendell Berry

(I'm not sure if these particular berries are safe for picking, but the quote was pretty perfect. They kind of look like the wolf or goji berries that my oldest sis has been known to harvest from rampant back alley vines. Any expert identification is welcome!)

Intersections - West of Superior, Montana

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, 
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.” - Wendell Berry

Looking Back the Way We Came - Mount Jumbo,Missoula, Montana

Descending, these hills appear steeper than in this from-below view, and brought to mind a scene from the movie, The Princess Bride: Tumbling tail over tea kettle, The Dread Pirate Roberts (aka Wesley) bellows, “Aaaas….youuu…wiiiish!” Love that movie! But this Wendell Berry poem is a little more inspiring.

“We travelers, walking to the sun, can’t see

Ahead, but looking back the very light

That blinded us shows us the way we came,…”
From
Reading a Sabbath Poem by Wendell Berry

Fall Harbinger, Missoula, Montana

The Wild Geese

by Wendell Berry

 from Collected Poems 1957-1982 (North Point Press)

Horseback on Sunday morning,

harvest over, we taste persimmon

and wild grape, sharp sweet

of summer's end. In time's maze

over fall fields, we name names

that went west from here, names

that rest on graves. We open

a persimmon seed to find the tree

that stands in promise,

pale, in the seed's marrow.

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear,

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye

clear. What we need is here.