The Thought of Something Else

“Field of Yellow Flowers” (1889, oil on canvas)
Vincent Van Gogh

                    

The Thought of Something Else

1. 

A spring wind blowing
the smell of the ground
through the intersection of traffic,
the mind turns, seeks a new
nativity—another place,
simpler less weighted
by what has already been.

Another place!
it’s enough to grieve me—
that old dream of going,
of becoming a better man
just by getting up and going
to a better place.

2.

The mystery.  The old
unaccountable unfolding.
The iron trees in the park
suddenly remember forests
It becomes possible to think of going.

3.

—a place where thought
can take its shape
as quietly in the mind
as water in a pitcher,
or a man can be
safely without thought
—see the day begin
and lean back,
a simple wakefulness filling
perfectly
the spaces among the leaves.

~ Wendell Berry

                   

Music by Morgan Taylor Reid, “Where Do I Even Start”