induction

i am inducting wendell berry into my personal poets hall of fame (music, please). he joins gerard manley hopkins and mary oliver as the wordsmiths and nature lovers i would most like to meet in heaven.  i discovered berry's (who--like mary oliver-- is very much alive, by the way) collection "leavings" at powell's and thought i had put it on hold at the library.  what i got was "new collected poems" which i'm so glad for!  hugging it to my chest i immediately began to read at dinner (the kind where the hostess says "just one?" or "dining alone?" or "will anyone be joining you?"  the kind where i'm tempted to pull up a chair for the author of the book that i'm having dinner with).  as the vineyards spread their golden locks over the hills and blueberry bushes are ablaze with vermillion, wendell berry's verses join in like a psalm.  as i'm appreciating every change in color and every ray of sun that graces us, one morning i heard birds singing.  later when i went for a walk, i heard birds again, like bookends to the day.  that's when i discovered wendell's "a song sparrow singing in the fall", as if on cue, which i have marked with a pressed leaf.

somehow it has all
added up to song--
earth, air, rain and light,
the labor and the heat,
the mortality of the young.
i will go free of other
singing, i will go
into the silence
of my songs, to hear
this song clearly.