The
Vacation
BY
WENDELL BERRY
Once
there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went
flying down the river in his boat
with his
video camera to his eye, making
a moving
picture of the moving river
upon
which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward
the end of his vacation. He showed
his
vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving
it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky,
the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind
which he stood with his camera
preserving
his vacation even as he was having it
so that
after he had had it he would still
have it.
It would be there. With a flick
of a
switch, there it would be. But he
would not
be in it. He would never be in it.
