A Clearing by Wendell Berry, 2018
The magic trick:
The wisdom of old age overlaid on the story
Privileged to share a story today that is pure beauty. Especially in the springtime here.
It’s slow and quiet and private.
An old man recalls a day when he was a boy wandering around the farmland and woods near his home. The specifics of what he remembers finding that day are important but not essential. But it’s the context that the narrator puts them in all these years later, looking back, that give the story a beauty and a purity of truth that is special.
And that’s quite a trick on Berry’s part.
The selection:
But when he saw the fox, he did not think of his rifle. The fox looked at him intelligently and curiously, as perhaps he looked at the fox. The fox was perfect in its features, its coat, and the alertness of its ears and eyes. Andy’s fear that he would scare the fox hardly amounted to a thought, but it was strong, and it stood him so still that eventually he felt a little strange when he began again to move. When the fox, having seen as much as it needed or wanted to see, vanished quickly but all the same unfrightened and without haste, Andy felt curiously complimented, as if the fox had agreed to his presence in the woods. He felt more present than he had been before. And now he walked with conscious care to be quiet.
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