Wendell Berry: "Enriching the Earth"

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and of various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.



"Enriching the Earth" by Wendell Berry, from Collected Poems, 1957-1982. © North Point Press, 1985.

Art credit: "The Sower," pastel and crayon or pastel on cream buff paper, by Jean-François Millet (originally color).