The country where he lives is haunted by the ghost of an old forest. In the cleared fields where he gardens and pastures his horses it stood once, and will return. There will be a resurrection of the wild. Already it stands in wait at the pasture fences. It is rising up in the waste places of the cities. When the fools of the capitals have devoured each other in righteousness, and the machines have eaten the rest of us, then there will be the second coming of the trees. They will come straggling over the fences slowly, but soon enough. The highways will sound with the feet of the wild herds, returning. Beaver will ascend the streams as the trees close over them. The wolf and the panther will find their old ways through the nights. Water and air will flow clear. Certain calamities will have passed, and certain pleasures. The wind will do without corners. How difficult to think of it: miles and miles and no window.
This poem is from a section in a 27-part poem titled “Window Poems” which you can find in — The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry, an American treasure. Nature's patriot. Wonderful way to begin the day.
I remember, as a youth, standing on the Slight rise of the farmhouse near Ohio's edgeline of the ancient glacier. Looking SE I could see the remaining tree lots on each bounderied acreage and thinking 150 years ago all I would have seen were trees.