May Song
by Wendell Berry
For whatever is let go
there’s a taker.
The living discovers itself
where no preparation
was made for it,
where its only privilege
is to live if it can.
The window flies from the dark
of the subway mouth
into the sunlight
stained with the green
of the spring weeds
that crowd the improbable
black earth
of the embankment,
their stout leaves
like the tongues and bodies
of a herd, feeding
on the new heat,
drinking in the seepage
of the stones:
the freehold of life,
triumphant
even in the waste
of those who possess it.
But it is itself the possessor,
we know at last,
seeing it send out weeds
to take back
whatever is left:
Proprietor, pasturing foliage
on the rubble,
making use
of the useless–a beauty
we have less than not
deserved.
This poem can be found in New Collected Poems by Wendell Berry.
Life of Kim 