A Meeting in A Part

In a dream I meet 


my dead friend. He has, 


I know, gone long and far, 


and yet he is the same 


for the dead are changeless. 


They grow no older. 


It is I who have changed, 


grown strange to what I was. 


Yet I, the changed one, 


ask: "How you been?" 


He grins and looks at me. 


"I been eating peaches 


off some mighty fine trees."

wendell berry

What you have done is to draw two peoples,

the Geat nation and us neighboring Danes,

into shared peace and a pact of friendship

in spite of hatreds we have harbored in the past

beowulf, 1855-1858

beowulf is a Christ figure -- one who brings not peace but a sword, but by his destruction brings life and peace.