In a Country Once Forested

The young woodland remembers
the old, a dreamer dreaming

of an old holy book,
an old set of instructions,

and the soil under the grass
is dreaming of a young forest,

and under the pavement the soil
is dreaming of grass.

Wendell Berry, poet, novelist, essayist, economics critic, and author of some forty books, has also farmed his family’s Kentucky land for forty years. “In a Country Once Forested” by Wendell Berry Copyright 2005 by Wendell Berry from Given. Reprinted by permission of Shoemaker & Hoard Publishers.