Kentucky River Junction
From Collected Poems by Wendell Berry

Clumsy at first, fitting together
the years we have been apart,
and the ways.

But as the night
passed and the day came, the first
fine morning of April,

it came clear:
the world that has tried us
and shadowed us its joy

was our bond
when we said nothing.
And we allowed it to be

with us, the new green
shinning.

*

Our lives, half gone,
stay full of laughter.

Free-hearted men
have the world for words.

Though we have been
apart, we have been together.

*

Trying to sleep, I cannot
take my mind away.
The bright day

shines in my head
like a coin
on the bed of a stream

*

You left
your welcome.

* Wendell Berry is a poet and novellist.