A Poem: Go Back to Gravel. 🐢 🦌 🦆 🐇 🐿️ 🦔 🚫🚙

Since I was a child, I rescued wayward, crippled creatures. Groundhogs that fell into our pool or birds too early out of the nest. I wept over my cats lost on the road, and stopped as long as I needed to not scare the deer that spotted me as I wandered the woods. Deep in my bones I had this sense that Creation was groaning. The gap between here and heaven leaves us well aware something is amiss. When I observe the creatures, trying to survive, I am confident they experience it too.

Wendell Berry, poet and farmer, has an intense passion that the Earth be cultivated, protected, and preserved. His influence is far-reaching; inspiring a conviction among many of us to steward the planet. We forget Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” This was the first clear responsibility, and Adam would go one to name the animals. Wow. Humanity is invigorated when God’s Creation is thriving as a result of being tended to. And we want the Earth to thrive, we go out of our way to look out at the vistas, we pay more money to be closer to the ocean, we collect flowers to color our homes, we take delight in the birds at our feeders, and we travel far and away to see mountain ranges covered with snow in the summer time.

The sad part is, we care most about convenience, comfort, and efficiency. Our marketplace is built on these values. Worse, our greed will kill us in time. But there is another way. We don’t have to keep swinging the wrecking ball to make “progress.” We can slow down. We can say no to “bigger” and “more.”

We opened our wedding with these lines from Wendell Berry’s poem, A Vision:

“If we will have the wisdom to survive,

to stand like slow-growing trees

on a runined place, renewing, enriching it,

if we will make our seasons welcome here,

then long after we are dead

the lives our lives prepare will live

here, their houses strongly placed

upon the valley sides, fields and gardens

rich in the windows. The river will run

clear, as we will never know it,

and over it, birdsong like a canopy.”

God’s glory is manifested in such stunning ways though thunder storms cracking the sky, tiny birds building sturdy nests, rivers that ring over the rocks, acorns with a big dream, and ants marching in their straight row building their tiny kingdom under the ground. We are blessed by God’s GOOD creation. Paying attention to these miracles is medicine for our weary lives.

I saw a survivor the other day, a snapping turtle on the side of the road. His shell looked like a baseball mitt, he was big, thick, looking around, sensing water in the air and pulled toward it. I knew on which side of the road the river ran, and he was on the right side. He had made his way and my hope was that he would keep going until he plunged into the swift-moving Brandywine River. Safe and sound.

A poem began in my head at that moment, inspired by that turtle…and this blog was inspired by that poem. Thanks, Wendell, for inspiring me…

It’s time to return to gravel trails,,

Footpaths in place of highways.

Gentle places where streams sing

And forests stand soundless and secure.

Where Natural things are left in place

For natural things,

Where crossing is easy

And water is close by.

There was a day when

Grazing wasn’t so risky.

Predators, yes

But no senseless death .

Death, yes

But not meaningless.

This is the groaning,

This is the whole earth

waiting with an aching

for danger-free zones.

Slow walking, or

Running with delight

And not out of freight,

Or fear of man

Who is supposed to

Stand guard:

The stewards.

So, come this way,

Beyond those endless fields.

Away from the rush of the road.

I’ll lead you back to gravel paths,

To the meandering river way.

I’ll watch the sun go down

As you graze

In the free space and

Walk from place to place

Unharmed, hidden

and unseen.