The Clearing Rests

Wendell Berry published a stunning collection of essays entitled "A Continuous Harmony." I love that phrase and thought of it when I read this poem. In it, I hear a description of a functional, harmonious relationship between Nature, which provides everything, and Man, which must work, all the same, to survive. In this setting, I repeat phrases to create a looping, gentle, meditative mood, as the music ponders on what it means to "join our work to Heaven's gift" as we "imagine Paradise." O, dust, arise!