The Slip

What is it that is stirring beneath the surface of the water?

I love Wendell Berry’s poetry, so I was delighted to find this in the Advent collection on Education for Justice.

The river takes the land, and leaves nothing.

Where the great slip gave way in the bank

and an acre disappeared, all human plans

dissolve. An awful clarification occurs

where a place was. Its memory breaks

from what is known now, begins to drift.

Where cattle grazed and trees stood, emptiness

widens the air for birdflight, wind, and rain.

As before the beginning, nothing is there.

Human wrong is in the cause, human

ruin in the effect–but no matter;

all will be lost, no matter the reason.

Nothing, having arrived, will stay.

The earth, even, is like a flower, so soon

passeth it away. And yet this nothing

is the seed of all–the clear eye

of Heaven, where all the worlds appear.

Where the imperfect has departed, the perfect

begins its struggle to return. The good gift

begins again its descent. The maker moves

in the unmade, stirring the water until

it clouds, dark beneath the surface,

stirring and darkening the soul until pain

perceives new possibility. There is nothing

to do but learn and wait, return to work
on what remains. Seed will sprout in the scar.
Though death is in the healing, it will heal