From John Knowles

Hi Carol,

We were, of course, shocked at the rapid onset of Mike's illness. Somehow his image in my mind does not fit with this.

I may have already sent the following Wendell Berry poem to you on some other occasion.

All our love
John


The Wheel
For Robert Penn Warren


At the first strokes of the fiddle bow
the dancers rise from their seats.
The dance begins to shape itself
in the crowd, as couples join,
and couples join couples, their movement
together lightening their feet.
They move in the ancient circle
of the dance. The dance and the song
call each other into being. Soon
they are one – rapt in a single
rapture, so that even the night
has its clarity, and time
is the wheel that brings it round.


In this rapture the dead return.
Sorrow is gone from them.
They are light. They step
into the steps of the living
and turn with them in the dance
in the sweet enclosure
of the song, and timeless
is the wheel that brings it round.


Wendell Berry