Heart Happy (cathy_edgett) wrote,
Heart Happy
cathy_edgett

Forgiveness -



It is hard to imagine Wendell Berry doing anything that needs forgiveness and yet here is his poem on the subject.


To My Mother

 

by Wendell Berry


I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
foresaw the worst that I might do,

and forgave before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green,
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.



 

"To My Mother" by Wendell Berry, from Entries. © Pantheon Books, 1994.



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