Poem.

• Author: Berry, Wendell
• Position: Poem

Poem III. Though his tenure on the earth is that of a blade of grass, though his acquaintance among the dead increases year by year and, like many grown old before, he lives from the loss of one beloved companion to the loss of yet another, the old man prays to find, at the end of his own leash, his love for the world at hand, his heart at rest in gratitude. Still, his old nightmares return. He dreams of permanent destruction, his country broken, its woodlands felled, its streams poisoned. The future deviling in his mind, his life shattered and strewn in the public way, his dreams recall the night of Gethsemane, the fear that the end of the way taken is not to die merely, but to die forsaken, the heart finally broken. From this despair he asks to be remade, set free, let go if only into the sanity of grief, if only to suffer the suffering of old companions he has loved and loves. Sometimes his love returns...