Wayne Swanger

If you have not as yet discovered Wendell Berry you must do so. The man and his work are extraordinary. His poetry, fiction and essays are refreshing, insightful, lyrical and lucid. My bookshelves include Berry volumes with names such as: A Place in Time, Entries, Sabbath Poems, Memory of Old Jack, The Hidden Wound and many others. Close your eyes, pull down a random volume and soak in the world of Wendell Berry. After sampling his work across any of the literary genre one is likely to come to two conclusions. First, this man is truly gifted and grounded. Second, that he is worthy of serious exploration and reading his work is time well spent. In 1987, I became acquainted with Wendell Berry and became a devoted reader of his work. Allow me to explain.

I have a well-worn copy of Collected Poems (1957-1982) by Wendell Berry. It was a gift. On the inside cover is this inscription:

June 1987

Herman,
Happy Birthday

Love,
Mike and Uli and Matthew

Little did my friends suspect that the book given to me for my 36^th birthday would be one of my most cherished volumes. Nor, did they suspect that their gift would not only lead me to embrace Wendell Berry’s poetry, but also his fiction and essays. Over the years I’ve acquired, read, reread and given away many volumes of Berry’s work. 

Over the 34 years since I received Collected Poems it has been kept close to me on bed stand, on office desk, and in briefcase. The poems in this volume have been a source of solace, inspiration, and joy to me over the years. The book bristles with tabs used to mark favorite poems.

In the volume there is one poem, The Gathering, that struck me as special with my first reading. I copied and posted the poem on a bulletin board in the elementary classroom where I taught in 1987. The poem was again posted above my desk in 1991 when I was a Penn State doctoral student. In 1997 it was posted above my desk when I accepted my first university teaching position in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Once again in 2009, when I assumed my final teaching position at Clarion University, a copy of the poem was prominently displayed on the bulletin board above my desk. The poem remained stapled on the bulletin board when I left the office for the last time. 

Here is the poem:

The Gathering
Wendell Berry

At my age my father
held me on his arm
like a hooded bird,
and his father held him so.
Now I grow into brotherhood
with my father as he
with his has grown,
time teaching me
his thoughts in my own.
Now he speaks in me
as his father spoke
in him when he had come
to thirst for the life
of a young son.  My son
will know me in himself
when his son sits hooded on
his arm and I have grown
to be brother to all
my fathers, memory
speaking to knowledge,
finally, in my bones.

I had been a son for thirty-six years and a father for four years when I first read Berry’s poem, The Gathering. The poem spoke to me then, and now thirty-four years later it continues to speak to me.  With the passage of time and accumulation of life experiences readings of the poem offer new understandings of intergenerational relationships. Only as a parent could I grow in knowledge of my father as I too managed the challenges of parenting. I am not the same father that my father was, but through the process of fathering there has grown a better understanding of my father and an appreciation of the path he followed as a young parent of a son and two daughters and later in his life as he assumed parental responsibilities for four additional step-children.

Now, I have the joy of observing my son as a father; When I watch their interactions I see my son in my grandson. I see myself in my son. I see hints of my father at times in both my son and in me. There is a joy and a reverence in these observations. There is a solemn recognition that we share more than DNA.

In the past three years my father died and our grandson, Émile, was born. Great-grandfather and great-grandson did meet briefly. A photo was taken when the two peered at one another for the first time, my father beaming with a suggestion of bemusement caused by the onset of dementia, and Émile looking at his great-grandfather with a hint of curiosity. My son, Luke, “holds his son on his arm like a hooded bird”. Luke appears to bask in the moment… in this first encounter, a meeting across generations.

I sent a copy of The Gathering to my son when his son was born thinking that he might find the poem revelatory; that he might take note of new understandings of his father as he “thirsts for the life of a young son”; that possibly, he may in turn see himself in his son as his son fathers his children and “I have grown to be brother to all my fathers, memory speaking to knowledge, finally, in my bones.” 

Happy Fathers’ Day!