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Column 778

Before Dark

Intro by Ted Kooser
02.16.2020

This week’s poem is one of my favorites and I can’t explain why in the fif­teen years I’ve been writ­ing this col­umn I’ve neglect­ed until now to share it with you. Wen­dell Berry is one of our country’s finest writ­ers, a poet, a fic­tion writer, an activist and a Ken­tucky farmer. This poem is from New Col­lect­ed Poems from Coun­ter­point Press, 2012. Berry’s most recent book of poet­ry is A Small Porch.

Before Dark

From the porch at dusk I watched
a kingfisher wild in flight
he could only have made for joy.

He came down the river, splashing
against the water’s dimming face
like a skipped rock, passing

on down out of sight. And still
I could hear the splashes
farther and farther away

as it grew darker. He came back
the same way, dusky as his shadow,
sudden beyond the willows.

The splashes went on out of hearing.
It was dark then. Somewhere
the night had accommodated him

—at the place he was headed for
or where, led by his delight,
he came.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2012 by Wendell Berry, "Before Dark," from New Collected Poems, (Counterpoint Press, 2012). Poem reprinted by permission of Wendell Berry and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.