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Our World With and For the Future

Wendell Berry

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Wendell Berry Wendell Berry has written many famously known poems, essays, novels, and short stories. His poems I will be analyzing are “The Peace of the Wild Things” and “The Water”. The poems were written around 1968 in one of Berry’s earliest collections of poetry and were reprinted in 1985. The poems contrast modern life with peaceful wild life as well as observing fear caused by the pollution of the environment.

What I believe “green” literature to be is writings that remind the people of their current connection with nature. Life before industrialization saw the values within nature and the connection to nature was stronger than what it is now. Green literature is a way to bring the values of nature back into our minds as we live in the era of industrialization. Green literature should reconnect people with nature helping them understand and appreciate the way it once was. Within nature was peace and beauty, people used to live among that beauty and never see to destroying it with town homes and skyscrapers.

The poem “The Peace of the Wild Things” is green literature because it reminds us as readers that nature, even though it has become scarcer than before, is still here around us and we need to see the peace and beauty in it once again.

In “The Peace of the Wild Things”, Berry starts off by describing his anxiety he has for the world that he lives in. The tone is fearful and concerning. In Berry's poem he stated:
“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be” (1-3)

Berry shows despair for the world around him. He is unsettled with how he sees his children growing up and is afraid of what they will have to face. Without reading any further this poem screams green literature. The words despair and fear say everything. It makes you think about what he could be describing that is so awful with the world, his children live with him on a quaint farm, what could be so wrong? What Berry is fearful of and disappointed in the world is how much we have distanced ourselves as a society so far from nature. Berry being the environmentalist that he is, knows the dangers we as humans have been putting into the world, fuel emissions, electricity to power technologies, smoke and toxic chemicals are released into the air every day, never stopping, and never going away. Even though most of us do not realize how much our daily lives put a strain on the environment, Berry knows most of all. Berry uses horses and other animals to work on his fields, he uses technologies that are only necessary and he always does the “green” thing as well as teaching his kids to do the same. Yet he still has a worry for his children in the future. He is still fearful because it is not the actions of his children but the dangers that everyone together are putting into the world that Berry as a single man cannot fix alone. Berry wakes in the night because he knows if there is no change his children could face a world of living that only seems believable in the movies. People surrounded by deserted land and poisonous chemicals pollute the land, leaving no salvageable food or water. It all seems like it was taken of a movie script but Berry knows even though it is not happening now it is possible for the future. This unfinished thought as the introduction to the rest of the poem open people’s eyes to others’ views on the current state of the environment and how is it wise to take a second look at the beauty nature.


After Berry describes his disgust with the world he has to escape it all.

“I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.” (4-6)

He leaves the home where everything reminds him of industrialization and returns to where he finds his serenity. Berry goes to the place where the wood drake, a species of duck that nest in trees, and a heron, a type of bird that waits to prey on fish in streams, live among each other undisturbed by humans. This place is his peaceful place. These animals can live and the beauties of their natural life are taken in by Berry. He experiences peace because it reminds him of his childhood and of what nature should be. It should be taken care of and respected for its beauty. Berry can not find peace in technology by watching a funny TV show, or listening to a good podcast, Berry needs the serenity and peace of nature to fully feel calm and true to himself. His feelings that come from nature shows green literature. The peace Berry feels among Nature is the first reminder to readers that as a society we need to find that peace and to find it we need to reconnect with nature in order to solve the corrupt, industrialized lifestyle that we forego living. Berry is one man who wants to live a full life of a happy mind and moral heart and he keeps himself grounded by remembering the beauty of nature. There is beauty in the wild things of nature and the Wood Drake and the Heron. These animals are not “taxing their lives with forethought of grief” as Berry wakes up every night with the fear for his children in the future. These animals do not have to feel that fear of industrialization. Berry almost seems envious of the wild things. He finds serenity in them but is also envious because he wishes he didn’t have the weight of fear for nature keeping him up in the night. Berry returns to this peaceful place night after night and writes about it to tell us that we should be living amongst nature as a part of nature, living to eat and be happy with one another and not polluting the environment and hurting the nature around us.

As Berry expresses his taxing thoughts of despair he also gives the reader small hope within the poem of the wild things. “I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.” (7-9)

The words grief and taxing are concerning for the reader but the phrases “presence of still water”(7) and “feeling the day blind stars” (8), are more calming and hopeful. It gives the reader a better experience reading those moments of the poem because as one reads they see the pain of industrialization in Berry's words but are aware of the joy and peace when they read Berry's nostalgic moments when he is in the presence of wild things.

   The poem then concludes:
“For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.” (10-11)
This last sentence releases all the harsh feelings and emotions Berry experienced with his fear and grief.. All of his anxieties and worries are gone after he is once again immersed in the wild things. He uses the power and beauty of nature to bring peace to himself and he rests feeling free.

This last sentence I believe is the most important sentence for “green” literature writing. Berry says he rests in the grace of the world. That phrase is powerful because not many people currently living in the modern world see nature as something you can rest in. Cities and suburban life has doses of nature here and there with small parks and some nature preserves but typically the people whom are not familiar with nature have more of an opposite emotion towards nature than grace. Going camping for some can be awful and dirty, and others it’s enjoyable and enlightening. Many people in society would never walk themselves down to a stream after a stressful day and find peace in the ripples of the water. It is Berry that is trying to remind them that nature can bring peace after a stressful day. Berry sees the grace in the world and knows there is peace. Berry knows the beauty and grace in nature will free him, as it will for others, which is why it is so important to conserve it and take care of nature. That’s why this poem is “green” literature, because it reminds us that we can confide in the grace of the world, in “the wild things”, because that’s what the world once was and used to be seen as by many. When people know that nature can bring them so much joy and are reminded of that it will encourage others to begin reconsidering how they treat the world, and take a second look at how little industrialization is needed compared to the natural world itself.

The poem The Water is also another source of green literature written by Wendell Berry. It begins by describing his experience in a drought as a young child. The lines are descriptive of how his mother and father dealt with the effects of the drought. Unable to leave the house except for when the men brought pails of water home from a distant spring. The wind was strong, leaves dying from lack of water in the unbearable sun, leaving them stranded in the house until it surpassed.

“I was born in a drouth year. That summer
my mother waited in the house, enclosed
in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind,
for the men to come back in the evenings,
bringing water from a distant spring.
veins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank.” (Berry 1-6)

This instance is where I believe to be where Berry found his first encounter to the fear of the world continuing its path of destruction on the environment. Berry’s fear is stated. “And all my life I have dreaded the return of that year, sure that it still is somewhere, like a dead enemys soul.” (7-9)

He dreads this drought day ever happening again. He dreads ever seeing the earth so destroyed that no life can grow and no person can live among it in peace. He is extra fearful because he knows the day will come again eventually and he cannot alone be the one to stop it. The drought is “like a dead enemys soul” because it will never disappear completely the soul of the drought will live on only to return one day. “Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me”(10). Berry is fearful for the future drought that is awaiting the world.

Over all The Water is green literature because Berry uses the fear of a future drought caused by the pollution of industrialization. The fear then reminds the readers it is important to conserve water and take care of nature so we can together lesson the distance of the foreseeable drought to come.

            Wendell Berry once was just a boy living on a family farm but now he is a well known respected green literature writer. He writes for the betterment of society and nature and he His inspire those who read his work to live a life full of peace and happiness by taking a second look the nature around them and find the beauty within it.