Sowing

In the stilled place that once was a road going down
From the town to the river, and where the lives of marriages grew
a house, cistern and barn, flowers, the tilted stone of borders,
and the deeds of their lives ran to neglect, and honeysuckle
and then the fire overgrew it all, I walk heavy
with seed, spreading on the cleared hill the beginnings
of green, clover and grass to be pasture. Between
history’s death upon the place and the trees that would have come
I claim, and act, and am mingled in the fate of the world.

-- Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, teacher, novelist, agrarian, farmer, and activist

Scripture Reference:  Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43, Proper 11A

Sowing the Seed

Sowing the seed,
my hand is one with the earth.

Wanting the seed to grow,

my mind is one with the light.

Hoeing the crop,
my hands are one with the rain.

Having cared for the plants, 

my mind is one with the air.

Hungry and trusting,
my mind is one with the earth.

Eating the fruit,
my body is one with the earth.

-- Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, teacher, novelist, agrarian, farmer, and activist

Scripture Reference:  Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43, Proper 11A

The Slip

The river takes the land, and leaves nothing.
Where the great slip gave way in the bank
and an acre disappeared, all human plans
dissolve. An aweful clarification occurs
where a place was. Its memory breaks
from what is known now, and begins to drift.
Where cattle grazed and trees stood, emptiness
widens the air for bird flight, wind, and rain.
As before the beginning, nothing is there.
Human wrong is in the cause, human
ruin in the effect-- but no matter;
all will be lost, no matter the reason.
Nothing, having arrived, will stay.
The earth, even, is like a flower, so soon
passeth it away. And yet there's nothing
is the seed of all—heaven’s clear
eye, where all the worlds appear.
Where the imperfect has departed, the perfect
begins its struggle to return. The good gift
begins again its descent. The maker moves
in the unmade, stirring the water until
it clouds, dark beneath the surface,
stirring and darkening the soul until pain
perceives new possibility. There is nothing
to do but learn and wait, return to work
on what remains. Seed will sprout in the scar.
Though death is in the healing, it will heal.


-- Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, teacher, farmer, essayist, and agrarian

Whatever is Foreseen in Joy

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day-to-day,
Vision held open in the dark
By our 10,000 days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we are asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.


-- Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, novelist, essayist, farmer, and agrarian philosopher

Scripture reference: James 5:7-10, Advent 3A

Whatever is Foreseen in Joy

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

--Wendell Berry (1935- ), American poet, farmer, essayist, teacher, and agrarian.

Scripture reference: Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20 and Galatians 6:1-16, Proper 9C

Sabbath Poem, 1985, V (How Long Does It Take To Make the Woods?)

How long does it take to make the woods?
As long as it takes to make the world.
The woods is present as the world is, the presence
of all its past, and of all its time to come.
It is always finished, it is always being made, the act
of its making forever greater than the act of its destruction.
It is a part of eternity, for its end and beginning
belong to the end and beginning of all things,
the beginning lost in the end, the end in the beginning.

What is the way to the woods, how do you go there?
By climbing up through the six days’ field,
kept in all the body’s years, the body’s
sorrow, weariness, and joy. By passing through
the narrow gate on the far side of that field
where the pasture grass of the body’s life gives way
to the high, original standing of the trees.
By coming into the shadow, the shadow
of the grace of the strait way’s ending,
the shadow of the mercy of light.

Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come in among these trees you must leave behind
the six days’ world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
into the ease of sight, the brotherhood [and sisterhood!] of eye and leaf.

--Wendell Berry (1938- ), American Baptist, farmer, poet, agrarian, and English professor

Six Days of Work Are Spent

Six days of work are spent
To make a Sunday quiet
That Sabbath may return.
It comes in unconcern;
We cannot earn or buy it.
Suppose rest is not sent
Or comes and goes unknown,
The light, unseen, unshown.
Suppose the day begins
In wrath at circumstance,
Or anger at one's friends
In vain self-innocence
False to the very light,
Breaking the sun in half,
Or anger at oneself
Whose controverting will
Would have the sun stand still.
The world is lost in loss
Of patience; the old curse
Returns, and is made worse
As newly justified.
In hopeless fret and fuss.
In rage at worldly plight
Creation is defied,
All order is unproved,
All light and singing stopped.


--Wendell Berry (1935- ), American poet, essayist, farmer, philosopher, novelist, and agrarian

Whatever is Foreseen in Joy

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day,

Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we're asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.


--Wendell Berry (1935- ), American poet, essayist, agrarian, philosopher, novelist, and farmer, from This Day: New and Collected Sabbath Poems


Scriptural association: Mark 4: 26-34 (Proper 6B)

The Wish to Be Generous

All that I serve will die, all my delights,
the flesh kindled from my flesh, garden and field,
the silent lilies standing in the woods,
the woods, the hill, the whole earth, all
will burn in man's evil, or dwindle
in its own age. Let the world bring on me
the sleep of darkness without stars, so I may know
my little light taken from me into the seed
of the beginning and the end, so I may bow
to mystery, and take my stand on the earth
like a tree in a field, passing without haste
or regret toward what will be, my life
a patient willing descent into the grass.

--Wendell Berry (1934- ), America poet, farmer, agrarian, essayist, and philosopher

Lectionary scripture: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15, Proper 8B

Sabbath Poem I (1986)-- A Timbered Choir

Slowly, slowly, they return

To the small woodland let alone:
Great trees, outspreading and upright,
Apostles of the living light.

Patient as stars, they build in air
Tier after tier a timbered choir,
Stout beams upholding weightless grace
Of song, a blessing on this place.

They stand in waiting all around,
Uprisings of their native ground,
Downcomings of the distant light;
They are the advent they await.

Receiving sun and giving shade,
Their life’s a benefaction made,
And is a benediction said
Over the living and the dead.

In fall their bright and leaves, released,
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance, amazed.
O light come down to earth, be praised!

-- Wendell Berry, American  poet, farmer, and essayist, from A Timbered Choir: the Sabbath Poems 1979-1997

Sabbath Poem I (1985)

Not again in this flesh will I see
the old trees stand here as they did,
weighty creatures made of light, delight
of their making straight in them and well,
whatever blight our blindness was or made,
however thought or act might fail.

The burden of absence grows, and I pay
daily the grief I owe to love
for women and men, days and trees
I will not know again. Pray
for the world's light thus borne away.
Pray for the little songs that wake and move.

For comfort as these lights depart,
recall again the angels of the thicket,
columbine aerial in the whelming tangle,
song drifting down, light rain, day
returning in song, the lordly Art
piercing out its humble way.

Though blindness may yet detonate in light,
running all, after all the years, great right
subsumed at last in paltry wrong,
what do we know? Still
the Presence that we come into with song
is here, shaping the seasons of His wild will.


-- Wendell Berry, American poet, farmer, agrarian, and essayist, from A Timbered Choir: the Sabbath Poems 1979-1997

II (Another Sunday morning comes)

Another Sunday morning comes
And I resume the standing Sabbath
Of the woods, or the finest blooms
Of time return, and where no path

Is worn but wears its makers out
At last, and disappears in leaves
Of fallen seasons. The tracked rut
Fills and levels; here nothing grieves

In the risen season. Past life
Lives in the living. Resurrection
Is in the way each maple leaf
Commemorates its kind, by connection

Outreaching understanding. What rises
Rises into comprehension
And beyond. Even falling raises
In praise of light. What is begun 

Is unfinished. And so the mind
That comes to rest among the bluebells
Comes to rest in motion, refined
By alteration. The bud swells,

Opens, makes seed, falls, is well,
Being becoming what it is:
Miracle and parable
Exceeding thought, because it is

Immeasurable; the understander
Encloses understanding, thus
Darkens the light. We can stand under
No ray that is not dimmed by us.

The mind that comes to rest is tended
In ways that it cannot intend:
Is borne, preserved, and comprehended
By what it cannot comprehend.

Your Sabbath, Lord, thus keeps us by
Your will, not ours. And it is fit
Our only choice should be to die
Into that rest, or out of it.

--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American farmer, poet, essayist, and agrarian, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997

I (I go among trees and sit still)

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
what I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American farmer, poet, essayist, and agrarian, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997

Enemies

If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?
From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

free of you, and you of them;
they are to you as sunlight
on a green branch. You must not

think of them again, except
as monsters like yourself,
pitiable because unforgiving.


--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, writer, agrarian, from Entries: Poems, 1994.

Scripture reference: Matthew 5:44, All Saints' Day, Year A

A Homecoming

One faith is bondage. Two
are free. In the trust
of old love, cultivation shows
a dark graceful wilderness
at its heart. Wild
in that wilderness, we roam
the distances of our faith,
safe beyond the bounds
of what we know. O love,
open. Show me
my country. Take me home.


--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American farmer, essayist, poet, agrarian, author, environmental activist

Anger Against Beasts

The hook of adrenaline shoves
into the blood. Man's will,
long schooled to kill or have
its way, would drive the beast
against nature, transcend
the impossible in simple fury.
The blow falls like a dead seed.
It is defeat, for beasts
do not pardon, but heal or die
in the absence of the past.
The blow survives in the man.
His triumph is a wound. Spent,
he must wait the slow
unalterable forgiveness of time.


--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American farmer, essayist, poet, agrarian, author, environmental activist

Prayer After Eating

I have taken in the light
that quickened eye and leaf.
May my brain be bright with praise
of what I eat, in the brief blaze
of motion and of thought.
May I be worthy of my meat.

--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American farmer, essayist, poet, agrarian, author, environmental activist

Image: detail of a window by Emil Frei and Sons at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Ferguson, MO

A Poem of Thanks

I have been spared another day
to come into this night
as though there is a mercy in things
mindful of me. Love, cast all
thought aside. I cast aside
all thought. Our bodies enter
their brief precedence,
surrounded by their sleep.
Through you I rise, and you
through me, into the joy
we make, but may not keep.

--Wendell Berry (1935- ), American poet, essayist, agrarian, and farmer, from New Collected Poems, 2012

The Wild Geese

 

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American farmer, poet, essayist, and agrarian

Sabbath Poem I: 1979

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consernations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

--Wendell Berry (1934- ), American poet, writer, agrarian, from This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems, 1979-2013, 2013