They come singly

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They come singly, the little streams,

Out of their solitude. They bear

In their rough fall a spate of gleams

That glance and dance in the morning air.

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They come singly, and coming go

Ever downward toward the river

Into whose dark abiding flow

They come, now quieted, together.

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In dark they mingle and are made

At one with light in highest flood

Embodied and inhabited,

The budded branch as red as blood.

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~ Wendell Berry

Sabbaths 2004, II

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