Empty, it fills with light

Sometimes it’s just a line that leaps out of a poem. And the line stays with you all day.

‘Empty, it fills with light …’ 

A Brass Bowl

Worn to brightness, this
bowl opens outward
to the world, like
the marriage of a pair
we sometimes know.
Filled full, it holds
not greedily. Empty,
it fills with light
that is Heaven’s and
its own. It holds
forever for a while.

Wendell Berry
The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
A Timbered Choir