“The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout, to him the soil is a divine drug.”

In 2009, thousands of people filled the Overture Hall in Madison, Wisconsin when Wendell Berry came to town. This college town entertains famous authors fairly often, and sometimes the crowd’s questions have a cynical edge. Berry’s audience, however, at least in my memory, felt seeped in gratitude, not just because he was a great poet, but also because his work as an environmentalist inspired a generation of activists. He has been called “the contemporary conscience of American agriculture.” Now, a week after his death, I’m still thinking about that day in 2009 and his calm, powerful, elegiac call to action.

Berry, Wendell. “The Man Born to Farming.” New Collected Poems, 1964-2010. Counterpoint California, 2012, p. 115.