Sowing Clover

It's a new moon. The earth is breathing in and out. Spring's breath is fragrant this morning. The robin's have returned to hunt in the meadow. Sets of onion and rhubarb are stretching up from their beds. Spring is comes early and wet.

I walk the land with gratitude and also with a sense of grief. Our world is being plundered and disrespected. Democracy is crumbling. There is suffering in every family I know. And even with my good intentions and creative endeavors I am a participant in the acts that hurt the earth. And I am powerless to keep my loved ones from their destructive addictions.

I sow a cover crop of clover anyway. I plan a verdant garden. I walk the land aware of the season's change. I am aware of my fear and my hope living side by side. I wonder how to praise the earth, love my family and serve God more faithfully? The seeds fall willingly into the patient clay.

I recall Wendell Berry's Poem February 2, 1968*:

In the dark of the moon, in flying snow,
in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying, the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover.

There is this one life, in this precarious time on earth. How will I live consciously without being carried away by the grievous events occurring in my generation? I am sowing the clover. I am creating a loving home. What else must I do?

Wendell Berry replies from his poem Stay Home:

I will wait here in the fields
to see how well the rain
brings on the grass.
In the labor of the fields
longer than a man's life
I am at home. Don't come with me.
You stay home too....

Where is home for you?
What are you sowing there?
Do you hear the rain's beauty song?
What will rise in our fields for the next generation?

* Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, P. 68 and p 105

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