Humility

Anglican Theological Review, Spring 1998 by Chappell, Fred

FRED CHAPPELL*

In the necessary field among the round Warm stones we bend to our gleaning. The brown earth gives in to our hands, and straw By straw burns red aslant the vesper light.

The village behind the graveyard tolls softly, begins To glow with new-laid fires. The children Quiet their shouting, and the martins slide Above the cows at the warped pasture gate.

They set the tinware out on checkered oilcloth And the thick-mouthed tumblers on the right-hand side. The youngest boy whistles the collie to his dish And lifts down the dented milk pail.

This is the country we return to when For a moment we forget ourselves, When we watch the sleeping kitten quiver After long play, or rain comes down warm.

Here we might choose to live always, here where Ugly rumors of ourselves do not reach, Where in the whisper-light of the kerosene lamp The deep Bible lies open like a turned-down bed.

* Fred Chappell, who has won the Bollingen Prize for poetry, teaches at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. "Humility" is from Spring Garden: New and Selected Poems (LSU Press, 1995).