Sabbath poem

1989

VIII

One day I walked imagining

What work I might do here,

The place, once dark, made clear

By work and thought, my managing, 

The world thus made more dear.

I walked and dreamed, the sun in clouds,

Dreamer and day at odds.

The world in its great mystery

Was hidden by my dream.

Today I make no claim; 

I dream of what is here, the tree

Beside the falling stream,

The stone, the light upon the stone; 

And day and dream are one.

Wendell Berry

Sabbaths 2004: VIII

It takes all time to show eternity,
The longest shine of every perishing spark,
And every word and cry of every tongue
Must form the Word that calls the darkest dark

Of this world to its lasting dawn. Toward
That rising hour we bear our single hearts
Estranged as islands parted in the sea,
Our broken knowledge and our scattered arts.

As separate as fireflies or night windows,
We piece a foredream of the gathered light
Infinitely small and great to shelter all,
Silenced into song, blinded into sight.

Welcome home

From Leavings, a book of poetry by Wendell Berry:

2008: X

So many times I've gone away
from here, where I'd rather be
than any place I know, to go
off into the air for which
my only gift is breath, for I have
of myself no wings. It is death.
Farewell, my dearest ones.
Farewell, my lovely fields. Farewell,
my grazing flock, my patient horses,
Maggie my ardent dog. Farewell,
tall woods always so full of song.

However long I've stayed away,
coming home is resurrection. The man
who has gone comes back to his place
as he would come naked and cold
into his own clothes. And they
are here, the known beloved: family,
neighbors obliging and dear. The dead,
too, denying their graves, haunt
the places they were known in and knew,
field and barn, riverbank and woods.
The familiar animals all are here.

Coming back is brightening in a grave,
such is the presage of old hymns.
To the place we parted from in sorrow
we return in joy: the beautiful shore,
eternal morning, unclouded day.

Poem posted in celebration of the fact that Mom is HOME! Greeted by Sophie the dog and Sarge the cat and grandchildren and puffy white clouds, she has been resurrected one more time. And one more time we are filled with gratitude.

Wendell Berry: Leavings

VIII.

I tremble with gratitude
for my children and their children
who take pleasure in one another.

In our dinners together, the dead
enter and pass among us
in living love and in memory.

And so the young are taught.

~2005~

The candle glow of silver, passed down by those now gone. But remembered.

Leavings

When Wendell Berry was in San Francisco earlier this month, the greatest part of the evening was when he quietly pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it and read to us a new poem. I have no idea when I will get to read it for myself, to remember his words with my mind that forgets too easily, but the recitation of that one poem was enough impetus for me to purchase his newest collection of poetry. I may not remember the sublime words he read that perfect night, but I can savor Leavings until the words sink in and penetrate my heart.

I.

I know that I have life
Only insofar as I have love.

I have no love
except it come from Thee.

Help me, please, to carry
this candle against the wind.

~2005~




Signed...how sweet is that?

Thoughts from today's hospital visit

So much of life is a gift.

My mother is in the ICU with a septic infection. It has been a scary few days, and I am beginning to experience new levels of tired. I am starting to pray specifically that my adrenal glands will live through this season of life; they are being tested to the limit. My apologies to those beloved glands.

Mom is healing, slowly, although tonight she seemed a bit off. Her numbers are better, but I had a weird feeling when I was with her. I hope to see more improvement in blood pressure numbers and a lessening number of meds. dripping into her well-stabbed left arm when I visit in the morning.

Someday I will bore you for paragraphs about the medical care we have in our community. We had the famous gold rush years in the 1840s...but that is nothing compared to the dedication and love of the physicians in our town. I am stunned and grateful and I am quite certain my mother would not be here today if not for their service to us.

For now I must sleep...hopefully for a really long time...but I leave you with these beautiful words from Wendell Berry:

Out his window this morning
he saw nine ducks in flight,
and a hawk dive at his mate
in delight.
The day stands apart
from the calendar. There is a will
that receives it as enough.
He is given a fragment of time
in this fragment of the world.
He likes it pretty well.

From Poem #13 in Window Poems

.

I like it pretty well, too, this fragment of the world on which I live and breathe and have my being. I've read this book, cover to cover, in the hospital waiting room, and it is soothing, melodic, homespun comfort. Just what the doctor ordered.

Autumn reading challenge

I may change this to my school year reading challenge, as I have no idea how many hours a week I will have for heavy reading. When life gets crazy, when hospital visits or constant transportation needs arise, I tend to fall back on the list of mystery stories, P.G. Wodehouse and other old favorites. Only time will tell.

Wendell Berry


The Wild Birds
Two More Stories of the Port William Membership
The Long-Legged House
Window Poems
Wendell Berry Life and Work; Edited by Jason Peters
Bringing It to the Table: On Farming and Food



Enslaved by Ducks by Bob Tarte
Katherine by Anya Seton
Rachel Ray by Anthony Trollope
Dante's Inferno
* From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics Louis Markos
* Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature Anthony Esolen
* The Office of Assertion: An Art of Rhetoric for Academic Essay by Scott Crider

And continuing to work my way through


Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Heath and Heath
Christ in the Psalms by Patrick Henry Reardon

* These were inspired by my dear friend at A Quotidian Life.



And a thought to inspire and encourage you as you think of your reading list for the coming season:

"A good book does reward you for trying to read it. The best books reward you most of all. The reward, of course, is of two kinds. First, there is the improvement in our reading skill that occurs when you successfully tackle a good, difficult work. Second - and this in the long run is much more important - a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life."

Mortimer J. Adler in How To Read A Book

Jayber Crow from a friend

A note from a dear friend with a lengthy quote from Wendell Berry; ah, it was a good day in the inbox.

"Her eyes had a glaze of tears that did not fall. I was touched entirely by the look of her and the sound of her voice. I said, "Della, are you all right?"


She said, "There are leftovers, Jayber. There are things I did or said that I wish I hadn't, and things I didn't do or say that I wish I had. When he finally got free of his sickness and awful clumsiness there at the last, I was glad, and yet I was sorry I was glad, and yet I miss him. But am I all right? Yes, I am all right...."

She went her way, then, and left me standing there still as a stone, all filled to running over with the force of what she had put into my mind."

It was the thought of Heaven. I thought an unimaginable thought of something I could almost imagine, of a sound I could not imagine but could almost hear: the outcry when a soul shakes off death at last and comes into Heaven. I don't speak of this because I "know" it. What I know is that shout of limitless joy, love unbound at last, our only native tongue.

I thought of you when I read this, you being still in that time of doing and giving. I was touched by your last letter about everyone eagerly working to do something, to show the love you all feel, and in some way envelop her in that. With my mom, I am always aware of just what Della says, a desire to erase certain things I did or said, and to have said and done things I didn't do and say. And I wonder if there is any person I love that I will not feel the same way about, in the looking back.