2886. Poetry: Love This Miraculous World

By Wendell Berry

Photo: Kamran Nayeri

Our understandable wish
to preserve the planet
must somehow be
reduced
to the scale of our
competence.
Love is never abstract.
It does not adhere
to the universe
or the planet
or the nation
or the institution
or the profession,
but to the singular
sparrows of the street,
the lilies of the field,
"the least of these
my brethren".
Love this miraculous world
that we did not make,
that is a gift to us.