The Wish to Be Generous
All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.
Notes
Berry tracks the liberating moment the self stops trying to possess, control, or master its own creations, choosing instead to surrender them to the unpredictable currents of the world. It beautifully anchors July’s focus on the art of staying unburdened, showing that our heaviest anxieties often come from the frantic effort to guard and defend what we claim as ours. By transforming the act of letting go into a radical, generative gift, the poem unburdens the soul, proving that true lightness is found when we finally allow ourselves to flow freely into the passing landscape without demanding anything in return. . #poetry #unburden #romantic #existential #nature