Inside its bends

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Inside its bends, the river 

builds the land, outside

it frets the land away.

This is unjust only from

a limited view.  Forever

it doesn't matter, is only

the world's way, the give

and take, the take and 

give we suffer in order 

to live.  This household

of my work, ungainly on

its stilts, stands outside

the bend, and the river wears

near and near, flow

outlasting the standing firm.

Trees once here are gone,

the slope they stood upon

gone.  I needed what is lost,

although I love as well

the flow that took it.  Now

spring is coming, the redbird's

peal rings from the thicket,

the pair exchanges like

a kiss a seed from the feeder,

and this is timeless.  But a day

in time will come when this

house will give way, the walls

lean and fall.  Shattered will be

my window's rectitude.

 

 

 

 

 

~ Wendell Berry

from Leavings
photo by Ansel Adams

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