to see, to hear, to hold, more carefully

.

O saints, if I am even eligible  for this prayer,

though less than worthy of this dear desire,

and if your prayers have influence in Heaven,

let my place there be lower than your own.

I know how you longed, here where you lived 

as exiles, for the presence of the essential

Being and Maker and Knower of all things.

But because of my unruliness, or some erring

virtue in me never rightly schooled,

some error clear and dear, my life

has not taught me your desire for flight:

dismattered, pure, and free.  I long

instead for the Heaven of creatures, of seasons,

of day and night.  Heaven enough for me 

would be this world as I know it, but redeemed 

of our abuse of it and one another.  It would be

the Heaven of knowing again.   There is no marrying

 in Heaven, and I submit; even so, I would like

 to know my wife again, both of us young again,

and I remembering always how I loved her

when she was old.  I would like to know

my children again, all my family, all my dear ones,

to see, to hear, to hold, more carefully

than before, to study them lingeringly as one

studies old verses, committing them to heart

forever.  I would like again to know my friends,

my old companions, men and women, horses

and dogs, in all the ages of our lives, here

in this place that I have watched over all my life

in all its moods and seasons, never enough.

I will be leaving how many beauties overlooked?

A painful Heaven this would be, for I would know

by it how far I have fallen short.  I have not

paid enough attention, I have not been grateful

enough.  And yet this pain would be the measure

of my love.  In eternity's once and now, pain would

place me surely in the Heaven of my earthly love.

~ Wendell Berry

from Leavings