In a time of disorder [Laertes] has returned to the care of the earth, the foundation of life and hope. And Odysseus finds him in an act emblematic of the best and most responsible kind of agriculture: an old man caring for a young tree. (pg. 123, The Body and the Earth)
Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
agriculture, earth, laertes, odysseus, odyssey