The Want of Peace
VIDEO
University of Illinois Oratorio Society and the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra; Stephen Alltop, conductor
DURATION
5’30”
INSTRUMENTATION
SATB (div.), piano
POET
Wendell Berry
YEAR COMPOSED
2014
COMMISSIONER
San Francisco Choral Society in collaboration with the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir
THIS IS A MOVEMENT FROM:
Terra Nostra
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TEXT
All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman's silence
receiving the river's grace,
the gardener's musing on rows.
I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.
"The Want of Peace" by Wendell Berry.
Text as published in New Collected Poems (Counterpoint Press, 2012).