Quote by: Wendell Berry

The sunlight now lay over the valley perfectly still. I went over to the graveyard beside the church and found them under the old cedars... I am finding it a little hard to say that I felt them resting there, but I did. I felt their completeness as whatever they had been in the world. I knew I had come there out of kindness, theirs and mine. The grief that came to me then was nothing like the grief I had felt for myself alone... This grief had something in it of generosity, some nearness to joy. In a strange way it added to me what I had lost. I saw that, for me, this country would always be populated with presences and absences, presences of absences, the living and the dead. The world as it is would always be a reminder of the world that was, and of the world that is to come.


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Author Bio


  • NameWendell Berry
  • Descriptionauthor
  • BornAugust 5, 1934
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPoet; Author; Novelist
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; National Humanities Medal; Four Freedoms Award - Freedom Medal