Wendell Berry: "Sabbaths 1999, VII"

Again I resume the long
lesson: how small a thing
can be pleasing, how little
in this hard world it takes
to satisfy the mind
and bring it to its rest.

With the ongoing havoc
the woods this morning is
almost unnaturally still.
Through stalled air, unshadowed
light, a few leaves fall
of their own weight.

                                  The sky
is gray. It begins in mist
almost at the ground
and rises forever. The trees
rise in silence almost
natural, but not quite,
almost eternal, but
not quite.

                 What more did I
think I wanted? Here is
what has always been.
Here is what will always
be. Even in me,
the Maker of all this
returns in rest, even
to the slightest of His works,
a yellow leaf slowly
falling, and is pleased.

"Sabbaths 1999, VII" by  Wendell Berry. Text as published in Given: Poems (Counterpoint, 2005). 

Art credit: "Autumn Leaf Falling from Tree," photograph by Verity E. Milligan.

Wendell Berry: "The Want of Peace"

All goes back to the earth,
and so I do not desire
pride of excess or power,
but the contentments made
by men who have had little:
the fisherman's silence
receiving the river's grace,
the gardner's musing on rows.

I lack the peace of simple things.
I am never wholly in place.
I find no peace or grace.
We sell the world to buy fire,
our way lighted by burning men,
and that has bent my mind
and made me think of darkness
and wish for the dumb life of roots.



"The Want of Peace" by Wendell Berry. Text as published in New Collected Poems (Counterpoint Press, 2012).

Curator's note: The word "gardner's" in the last line of the first stanza is as spelled in the text.

Art credit: "Fly fishing," photograph taken in Yellowstone National Park [USA] by Ranch Seeker.

 

Wendell Berry: "The Sorrel Filly"

The songs of small birds fade away
into the bushes after sundown,
the air dry, sweet with goldenrod.
Beside the path, suddenly, bright asters
flare in the dusk. The aged voices
of a few crickets thread the silence.
It is a quiet I love, though my life
too often drives me through it deaf.
Busy with costs and losses, I waste
the time I have to be here—a time
blessed beyond my deserts, as I know,
if only I would keep aware. The leaves
rest in the air, perfectly still.
I would like them to rest in my mind
as still, as simply spaced. As I approach,
the sorrel filly looks up from her grazing,
poised there, light on the slope
as a young apple tree. A week ago
I took her away to sell, and failed
to get my price, and brought her home
again. Now in the quiet I stand
and look at her a long time, glad
to have recovered what is lost
in the exchange of something for money.

"The Sorrel Filly" by Wendell Berry. Text as published in Collected Poems: 1957-1982 (North Point Press, 1985). 

Art credit: "Wild Horse Sunset," photograph by Leland D. Howard.

Wendell Berry: "VI: Sabbaths 2001" ["Sit and be still"]

Sit and be still
until in the time
of no rain you hear
beneath the dry wind’s
commotion in the trees
the sound of flowing
water among the rocks,
a stream unheard before,
and you are where
breathing is prayer.







 
"VI: Sabbaths 2001" ["Sit and be still"] by Wendell Berry. Text as posted on the website of Parabola (10/11/12).

Art credit: Untitled illustration of "hands in meditation with tree," mixed media, by Elena Ray.

Wendell Berry: "The Peace of Wild Things"

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry. Text as published in New Collected Poems (Counterpoint Press, 2012).

Curator's note: So many tragedies in the world. I can't acknowledge them all with a poem. But I can't let pass the earthquake and aftershocks that have recently terrorized countless people in Nepal, India and Tibet. May memory hold in its golden cup all those who have perished. May the survivors somehow rest in the peace they need to go on. May we on the outside help bear them up, help carry them to still waters.

Art credit: Untitled photograph by Omar Havana/Getty Images. Caption: "A Buddha statue is surrounded by debris from a collapsed temple in the UNESCO world heritage site of Bhaktapur on April 26, 2015 in Bhaktapur, Nepal."

Wendell Berry: "A Purification"

At start of spring I open a trench
in the ground. I put into it
the winter's accumulation of paper,
pages I do not want to read
again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the sun, growth of the ground,
finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise;
have been inattentive to wonders;
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse
of mind and body, I close the trench,
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new.

"A Purification" by Wendell Berry. Text as published in New Collected Poems (Counterpoint, 2012).

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Wendell Berry: "Be Still in Haste"

                                                     How quietly I
                                                     begin again

                                                     from this moment
                                                     looking at the
                                                     clock, I start over

                                                     so much time has
                                                     passed, and is equaled
                                                     by whatever
                                                     split-second is present

                                                     from this
                                                     moment this moment
                                                     is the first

"Be Still in Haste" by Wendell Berry. Text as published in Poetry (September 1962).

Art credit: "Alarm clock on a swing in surreal landscape," image by Ian Barber. © Red Edge / Ian Barber.


 

Wendell Berry: "1996, V" ["Some Sunday afternoon, it may be"]

[Note: If you can't see the viewer above, please click here to watch the video.]
 

Some Sunday afternoon, it may be,
you are sitting under your porch roof,
looking down through the trees
to the river, watching the rain. The circles
made by the raindrops’ striking
expand, intersect, dissolve,

and suddenly (for you are getting on

now, and much of your life is memory)
the hands of the dead, who have been here
with you, rest upon you tenderly
as the rain rests shining
upon the leaves. And you think then

(for thought will come) of the strangeness

of the thought of heaven, for now
you have imagined yourself there,
remembering with longing this
happiness, this rain. Sometimes here
we are there, and there is no death.

"1996, V"  ["Some Sunday afternoon, it may be"] by Wendell Berry, from This Day: New & Collected Sabbath Poems 1979-2012. © Counterpoint, 2013.

Art credit: "Kayden + Rain," video by Nicole Byon; soundtrack music, "In My Arms," by Jon Foreman.

Wendell Berry: "Enriching the Earth"

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and of various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.



"Enriching the Earth" by Wendell Berry, from Collected Poems, 1957-1982. © North Point Press, 1985.

Art credit: "The Sower," pastel and crayon or pastel on cream buff paper, by Jean-François Millet (originally color).

Wendell Berry: "Traveling at Home"

                                  Even in a country you know by heart
                                  it's hard to go the same way twice.
                                  The life of the going changes.
                                  The chances change and make a new way.
                                  Any tree or stone or bird
                                  can be the bud of a new direction. The
                                  natural correction is to make intent
                                  of accident. To get back before dark
                                  is the art of going.

"Traveling at Home" by Wendell Berry, from Traveling at Home. © Counterpoint, 2011.  

Art credit: "Sun Rays," image by unknown photographer (originally color).

 

Wendell Berry: "I" ["No, no, there is no going back"]

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

containing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now, and always.

And so you have become a sort of tree

standing over the grave.

Now more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes, young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind.

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

"I" ["No, no, there is no going back"] (from 1993) by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems, 1979-1997. © Counterpoint, 1999.  

Photography credit: "Grave Under Tree," by Stephanie L. Nicholas, 2012 (originally black and white).

Wendell Berry: "How to Be a Poet"

 

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your work,

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

There are only sacred places

And desecrated places.

iii   

Accept what comes from silence.   

Make the best you can of it.   

Of the little words that come   

out of the silence, like prayers   

prayed back to the one who prays,   

make a poem that does not disturb   

the silence from which it came.

"How to Be a Poet" by Wendell Berry. Published in Poetry (January 2001). 

Photography credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer, found at this link (originally color).

 

Wendell Berry: "October 10"

Now constantly there is the sound,

quieter than rain,
of the leaves falling.

Under their loosening bright
gold, the sycamore limbs
bleach whiter.

Now the only flowers
are beeweed and aster, spray
of their white and lavender
over the brown leaves.

The calling of a crow sounds
loud—a landmark—now
that the life of summer falls
silent, and the nights grow.




"October 10" by Wendell Berry, Collected Poems, 1957-1982. © North Point Press, 1987.

Image credit: "Falling Leaves," oil on canvas, by Julia Swartz (originally color).


 

Wendell Berry: "Sabbaths 2001, VIII"

The question before me, now that I
am old, is not how to be dead,
which I know from enough practice,
but how to be alive, as these worn
hills still tell, and some paintings
of Paul Cézanne, and this mere
singing wren, who thinks he's alive
forever, this instant, and may be.

"Sabbaths 2001, VIII" by Wendell Berry. Published in Poetry, October/November 2002.

Image credit: "Curtain, Jug and Fruit," oil on canvas, by Paul Cézanne, 1894 (originally color).


 

Wendell Berry: "I Dream of a Quiet Man"

I dream of a quiet man

who explains nothing and defends

nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.

"I Dream of a Quiet Man" by Wendell Berry, from Given. © HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.

Photography credit: by JHDT Stock Images LLC (originally color).

Wendell Berry: "The Vacation"

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.

"The Vacation" by Wendell Berry, from New Collected Poems. © Counterpoint, 2012.

Image credit: film clip by Carl Ballou (originally color).



 

Wendell Berry: "To Know the Dark"

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.









"To Know the Dark" by Wendell Berry, from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. © Counterpoint, 1999.

Photography credit: Unknown (originally color).


 

Wendell Berry: "The Watchers"

The horses graze the winter slope

and then go to the high ground
and stand, watching the traffic
along the road, the slow river,
the trees leaning and straightening
in the wind. The day's time
is their time. They do not move
toward it or away. Their minds
are at home in this world,
diminished by no question.

"The Watchers" by Wendell Berry. Published in Harper's Magazine, September 1977.

Photograph: "Bachelor Band of Wild Horses Face into the Wind Picking Up Scents" (originally black and white), by Melissa Farlow.