…His essays, the Sabbath Poems, the Port William novels — “Hannah Coulter,” “Jayber Crow,” “The Memory of Old Jack,” all quiet on the surface — are lakes of sleek astonishments. The possibilities of life in a small place are a mirror to the world, because let’s face it, every place is its own kind of small. It’s a universal clemency to find delight in what we have instead of craving what we don’t, and likewise, a balm to any existential dread to consider that “the fragment of the earth/that is now me” is just passing through: “It is on its way/from having been a tree,/a school of fish, a terrapin,/a flock of birds. It will pass/through all those forms again.”
Who doesn’t want to be a flock of birds someday? Returning here to “Manifesto,” we can all use instruction on how to “Be joyful/though you have considered all the facts.”
…
Barbara Kingsolver
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/books/review/wendell-berry-appreciation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
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