Together

I read a Wendell Berry poem this morning, “They Sit Together on the Porch.”  It reminded me of how it should be for people who have shared their lives for decades.  Ten years ago when Mrs. tVM and I lived on the edge of the Saguaro National Park with little light pollution, we abandoned the television to sit in the backyard every evening and wait for the first star to appear, then the second, the third, fourth and fifth… it was a great way to spend the quiet desert evenings.  We’re poised to do it again.

Mitakuye Oyasin

They Sit Together on the Porch
by
Wendell Berry

They sit together on the porch, the dark

Almost fallen, the house behind them dark.

Their supper done with, they have washed and dried

The dishes–only two plates now, two glasses,

Two knives, two forks, two spoons–small work for two.

She sits with her hands folded in her lap,

At rest. He smokes his pipe. They do not speak,

And when they speak at last it is to say

What each one knows the other knows. They have

One mind between them, now, that finally

For all its knowing will not exactly know

Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding

Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone.

by Wendell Berry, “They Sit Together on the Porch” from A Timbered Choir. ©1998 Counterpoint Press.