<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><div class="KonaBody" style="font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; line-height: 14.4px; widows: 1; padding-right: 5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="font-variant-ligatures: normal !important; font-variant-position: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-variant-alternates: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; line-height: 23px !important;">Testament</p><p style="font-variant-ligatures: normal !important; font-variant-position: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-variant-alternates: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; line-height: 23px !important;"><i><br></i></p><p style="font-variant-ligatures: normal !important; font-variant-position: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-variant-alternates: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; line-height: 23px !important;"><i>And now to the Abyss I pass<br>Of that Unfathomable Grass... </i><br><br>1.<br>Dear relatives and friends, when my last breath<br>Grows large and free in air, don't call it death --<br>A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire<br>His surly art of imitating life; conspire<br>Against him. Say that my body cannot now<br>Be improved upon; it has no fault to show<br>To the sly cosmetician. Say that my flesh<br>Has a perfect compliance with the grass<br>Truer than any it could have striven for.<br>You will recognize the earth in me, as before<br>I wished to know it in myself: my earth<br>That has been my care and faithful charge from birth,<br>And toward which all my sorrows were surely bound,<br>And all my hopes. Say that I have found<br>A good solution, and am on my way<br>To the roots. And say I have left my native clay<br>At last, to be a traveler; that too will be so.<br>Traveler to where? Say you don't know.<br><br>2.<br>But do not let your ignorance<br>Of my spirit's whereabouts dismay<br>You, or overwhelm your thoughts.<br>Be careful not to say<br>Anything too final. Whatever<br>Is unsure is possible, and life is bigger<br>Than flesh. Beyond reach of thought<br>Let imagination figure<br><br>Your hope. That will be generous<br>To me and to yourselves. Why settle<br>For some know-it-all's despair<br>When the dead may dance to the fiddle<br><br>Hereafter, for all anybody knows?<br>And remember that the Heavenly soil<br>Need not be too rich to please<br>One who was happy in Port Royal.<br><br>I may be already heading back,<br>A new and better man, toward<br>That town. The thought's unreasonable,<br>But so is life, thank the Lord! <br><br>3.<br>So treat me, even dead,<br>As a man who has a place<br>To go, and something to do.<br>Don't muck up my face<br>With wax and powder and rouge<br>As one would prettify<br>An unalterable fact<br>To give bitterness the lie.<br><br>Admit the native earth<br>My body is and will be,<br>Admit its freedom and<br>Its changeability.<br><br>Dress me in the clothes<br>I wore in the day's round.<br>Lay me in a wooden box.<br>Put the box in the ground.<br><br>4.<br>Beneath this stone a Berry is planted<br>In his home land, as he wanted.<br>He has come to the gathering of his kin,<br>Among whom some were worthy men,<br><br>Farmers mostly, who lived by hand,<br>But one was a cobbler from Ireland,<br><br>Another played the eternal fool<br>By riding on a circus mule<br><br>To be remembered in grateful laughter<br>Longer than the rest. After<br><br>Doing that they had to do<br>They are at ease here. Let all of you<br><br>Who yet for pain find force and voice<br>Look on their peace, and rejoice. <br></p><div><br></div></div><div>
<div><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><br></div><div style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Wendell Berry</div></div><div><br></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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