Prologue to Remembering

by Wendell Berry
Heavenly, Muse, Spirit who brooded on
The world and raised it shapely out of nothing,
Touch my lips with fire and burn away
All dross of speech, so that I keep in mind
The truth and end to which my words now move
In hope.  Keep my mind within that Mind
Of which it is a part, whose wholeness is
The hope of sense in what I tell.  And though
I go among the scatterings of that sense,
The members of its worldly body broken
Rule my sight by vision of the parts
Rejoined. And in my exile's journey far
From home, be with me, so I may return.