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The Eager Dog Lies Strange and Still by Wendell Berry

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The eager dog lies strange and still who roamed the woods with me; Then while I stood or climbed the hill Or sat under a tree,

Awaiting what more time might say, He thrashed in undergrowth, Pursuing what he scared away, Made ruckus for us both.

He’s dead; I go more quiet now, Stillness added to me By time and sorrow, mortal law, By loss of company

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That his new absence has made new. Though it must come by doom, This quiet comes by kindness too, And brings me nearer home,

For as I walk the wooded land The morning of God’s mercy, Beyond the work of mortal hand, Seen by more than I see.

The quiet deer look up and wait, Held still in quick of grace. And I wait, stop footstep and thought. We stand here face to face.

From “Sabbaths” (North Point: $12.95, cloth; $6.95, paper; 112 pp.), a collection of meditative, formal, sometimes prayerlike poems written over seven years of Sabbaths, 1979-1986. Berry, who has lived and farmed in Henry County, Ky., for 30 years, is admired almost equally for his poetry, his fiction and his essays on a wide range of subjects, including, notably, agriculture. Berry makes the preservation of the land a kind of key to the preservation of sanity. He was recently the recipient of the Award of Merit from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

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