Evening Poetry, May 9

The Future

by Wendell Berry

For God’s sake, be done

with this jabber of “a better world”.

What blasphemy! No “futuristic”

twit or child thereof ever

in embodied light will see

a better world than this, though they

foretell inevitably a worse.

Do something! Go cut the weeds

beside the oblivious road. Pick up

the cans and bottles, old tires,

and dead predictions. No future

can be stuffed into this presence

except by being dead. The day is

clear and bright, and overhead

the sun not yet half finished

with his daily praise.

You can find this book in the collection Given.

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