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Wendell Berry’s “Testament” · The Daily Poem

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[music]
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SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Tuesday, September 1st, 2026.
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SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Wendell Berry, and it's called Testament.
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SPEAKER_00: Berry fell asleep in the Lord yesterday and will be mourned by...
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SPEAKER_00: Countless lovers of his fiction,
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SPEAKER_00: of his poetry,
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SPEAKER_00: his Mad Farmer poems,
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SPEAKER_00: his Sabbath poems,
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SPEAKER_00: as well as all of his wonderful nonfiction,
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SPEAKER_00: his advocacy, his conservatism, his quiet humility.
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SPEAKER_00: May Wendell Berry's memory be eternal.
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SPEAKER_00: This poem was originally published in 1971 in his collection, The Country of Marriage.
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SPEAKER_00: It's striking that he has been thinking and preparing for this day so long,
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SPEAKER_00: but I think one of the lessons that runs through a lot of Barry's work is
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SPEAKER_00: that essential to living a good life is preparing for a good death.
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SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite things about this poem is its title, Testament.
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SPEAKER_00: We usually expect to find at the end of the phrase, last will and will.
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SPEAKER_00: By offering just the single word testament,
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SPEAKER_00: he of course invokes that entire phrase and notion,
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SPEAKER_00: but also last is conspicuously absent,
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SPEAKER_00: which will come as no surprise when you hear the poem.
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SPEAKER_00: He's very much convinced that there's nothing last about the death he envisions.
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SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem, Testament.
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SPEAKER_00: There's an epigraph from Andrew Marvell,
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SPEAKER_00: and now to the abyss I pass, of that unfathomable grass.
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SPEAKER_00: One.
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SPEAKER_00: Dear relatives and friends,
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SPEAKER_00: when my last breath grows large and free in air, don't call it death.
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SPEAKER_00: A word to enrich the undertaker and inspire his surly art of imitating life.
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SPEAKER_00: Conspire against him.
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SPEAKER_00: Say that my body cannot now be improved upon.
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SPEAKER_00: It has no fault to show to the sly cosmetician.
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SPEAKER_00: Say that my flesh has a perfect compliance with the grass,
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SPEAKER_00: truer than any it could have striven for.
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SPEAKER_00: You will recognize the earth in me,
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SPEAKER_00: as before I wished to know it in myself,
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SPEAKER_00: my earth that has been my care and faithful charge from birth,
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SPEAKER_00: and toward which all my sorrows were surely bound, and all my hopes...
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SPEAKER_00: Say that I have found a good solution and am on my way to the roots.
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SPEAKER_00: And say I have left my native clay at last to be a traveler.
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SPEAKER_00: That too will be so.
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SPEAKER_00: Traveler to where?
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SPEAKER_00: Say you don't know.
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SPEAKER_00: Two.
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SPEAKER_00: But do not let your ignorance of my spirit's whereabouts dismay you or overwhelm your thoughts.
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SPEAKER_00: Be careful not to say anything too final.
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SPEAKER_00: Whatever is unsure is possible, and life is bigger than flesh.
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SPEAKER_00: Beyond reach of thought let imagination figure your hope.
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SPEAKER_00: That will be generous to me and to yourselves.
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SPEAKER_00: Why settle for some know-it-all's despair when the dead may dance to
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SPEAKER_00: the fiddle hereafter, for all anybody knows?
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SPEAKER_00: And remember that the heavenly soil need not be too rich to please one who was happy
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SPEAKER_00: in Port Royal.
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SPEAKER_00: I may be already headed back, a new and better man toward that town.
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SPEAKER_00: The thoughts are unreasonable, but so is life, thank the Lord.
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SPEAKER_00: 3.
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SPEAKER_00: So treat me, even dead, as a man who has a place to go and something to do.
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SPEAKER_00: Don't muck up my face with wax and powder and rouge,
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SPEAKER_00: as one would prettify an unalterable fact to give bitterness the lie.
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SPEAKER_00: Admit the native earth my body is and will be.
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SPEAKER_00: Admit its freedom and its changeability.
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SPEAKER_00: Dress me in the clothes I wore in the days round.
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SPEAKER_00: Lay me in a wooden box.
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SPEAKER_00: Put the box in the ground.
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SPEAKER_00: 4.
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SPEAKER_00: Beneath this stone a berry is planted in his homeland as he wanted.
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SPEAKER_00: He has come to the gathering of his kin, among whom some were worthy men.
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SPEAKER_00: Farmers mostly, who lived by hand, but one was a cobbler from Ireland.
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SPEAKER_00: Another played the eternal fool by riding on a circus mule to be remembered
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SPEAKER_00: in grateful laughter longer than the rest.
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SPEAKER_00: After doing that they had to do, they are at ease here.
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SPEAKER_00: Let all of you who yet for pain find force and voice look on their peace and rejoice.
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SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
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SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with more poetry for you.
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SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
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SPEAKER_00: you can find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of
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SPEAKER_00: The Daily Poem, including many of Barry's other works.
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SPEAKER_00: Leave your own thoughts and comments about each day's poem.
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SPEAKER_00: In this case, fond reminiscences about Barry and his work or his life or his other poetry.
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SPEAKER_00: And as always, you can become a subscriber and supporter of our show.
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SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios,
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SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, hoping you'll pray for Wendell Berry and his family.
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SPEAKER_00: You'll go pick up one of his books and you'll enjoy some happy reading.