How joyful to be together, alone
as when we first were joined
in our little house by the river
long ago, except that now we know
each other, as we did not then;
and now instead of two stories fumbling
to meet, we belong to one story
that the two, joining, made. And now
we touch each other with the tenderness
of mortals, who know themselves:
how joyful to feel the heart quake
at the sight of a grandmother,
old friend in the morning light,
beautiful in her blue robe!
~Wendell Berry āThe Blue Robeā fromĀ New Collected Poems
Our hair turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know. It was bitter to learn
that we come to death as we come
to love, bitter to face
the just and solving welcome
that death prepares. But that is bitter
only to the ignorant, who pray
it will not happen. Having come
the bitter way to better prayer, we have
the sweetness of ripening. How sweet
to know you by the signs of this world!
~Wendell Berry from “Ripening”
My husband and I have spent 43 years of late summer evenings together – much like this one – breathing in the smell of ripening cornfields and freshly mowed silage grass lying in windrows waiting to be picked up for winter forage. Ā Ā
Just down the road is the smaller farm we first bought when we wished to leave the city behind for a new life amid quieter surroundings.
The seedling trees my husband planted there are now a thick grove and effective windbreak from the bitter howling northeasters we endured.Ā Our oldest son and his family live in that farm house now, moving home after more than a decade of mission work in Japan.
There is such sweetness knowing the first home we owned together is home for two of our grandchildren.
Our three children were raised on this road and they strolled these roads with us many times, before flying far away for their lifeās work. My husband and I continue our walk together, just the two of us, pondering how the passage of time could be so swift that our hair has turned white.
We are going to seed when it was only yesterday we were so young.
Indeed we have ripened before weāre feeling ready. It is bitter sweetness relinquishing the youth we once knew, to face a future we can never know.
It is the mystery that keeps us coming back, walking the same steps those younger legs once did, admiring the same setting sun, smelling the same late summer smells. But we are not the same as we were, having progressed to a fruitfulness God intended all along.
Ripening and readying, our seed now flies with the wind.
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Emily, thank you so much!!I just shared the first Wendell Berry poem with my husband yesterday.It was his 73rd birthday (we have been married for 44 years this November) I especially love the lines:
and now instead of two stories fumbling to meet, we belong to one story that the two, joining, made. And now
we touch each other with the tenderness of mortals, who know themselves: We are indeed one story now, woven of the many colors and textures of our two stories… and after many losses, and physical diminishing, we do “touch one another with a tenderness of mortals, who know themselves” – not perfectly – but with a clarity and grace and gratitude we didn’t know before…Ā ~Donna
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Ā āBe still, and know that I am God;” – Psalm 46, 10
“Youth is wasted on the young.” – George Benard Shaw
When young we are constantly drawn to excitement, seeking to be with others, to see new things and to be seen. When we become older, we gradually seek less and less. We no longer are drawn outside ourselves for we have a life now filled with experience and all the more we look inward. And there in stillness we find God.
People of common sense often leave the urban or even suburban life for the rural. In seeking the calm and comfort in the nearness of nature we come closer to ourselves. And in every quieted heart and soul that becomes more familiar with the self, so too does it come to know God.
In Wendell Berry’s poemĀ āRipeningā death has its task, as a renting of the veil that separates this life from the next. As a baby resists leaving its mother’s womb to enter the world, so too we resist being taken from this life. Because we are familiar with here and not with a there. But faith tells us there in nothing to fear for to be lost to this world is to be [F]ound [A]ways [I]n [T]hy [H}and.
Maximus in the movie Gladiator said: “Death smiles on us all. All we can do is smile back.” Christ guarantees that in faith there is reason enough for us to smile.
-Alan
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Dear Donna, thank you for your understanding about the one story that comes from two joined together. You are where we are, in that tenderness of knowing one another so well. Bless you both, Emily
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Dear Alan, you have shared so much wisdom here, thank you! It is a ripe time of life and we are so thankful to be here at this point. Blessings to you, Emily
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