ON BEING A FATHER

Poem for Today - Father's Day - June 1, 2014

TO MY CHILDREN,

FEARING FOR THEM

Terrors are to come. The earth

is poisoned with narrow lives.

I think of you. What will you

live through, or perish by, eats

at my heart. What have I done?

I need better answers than there are

to the pain of coming to see

what was done in blindness,

loving what I cannot save. Nor,

your eyes turning towards me,

can I wish your lives unmade

though the pain of them is on me.

© Wendell Berry,

Pages 59-60 in

Collected Poems

1957-1982