I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.

Meaning of the quote

The poet is saying that he doesn't feel the need to be anywhere in particular, but instead he wants to be in his own private space where he has grown his own plants and trees. When the sun is hot, he likes to go into the peaceful shade of the woods to find comfort and rest.

About Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is an acclaimed American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. He is known for his agrarian themes and novels set in the rural community of Port William, Kentucky. Berry has received numerous prestigious awards, including the National Humanities Medal and induction into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.

More about the author

More quotes from Wendell Berry

It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.

Wendell Berry

American writer

All right, every day ain’t going to be the best day of your life, don’t worry about that. If you stick to it you hold the possibility open that you will have better days.

Wendell Berry

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I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.

Wendell Berry

American writer

We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?

Wendell Berry

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The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.

Wendell Berry

American writer

These are people who are capable of devotion, public devotion, to justice. They meant what they said and every day that passes, they mean it more.

Wendell Berry

American writer

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief… For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

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The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

Wendell Berry

American writer

To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.

Wendell Berry

American writer

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

Wendell Berry

American writer

Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.

Wendell Berry

American writer

We cannot comprehend what comprehends us.

Wendell Berry

American writer