A timbered choir : the sabbath poems, 1979-1997 / Wendell Berry.

Preface.
1979. I go among trees and sit still
Another Sunday morning comes
To sit and look at light-filled leaves
The bell calls in the town
How many have relinquished
What stood will stand, though all be fallen
What if, in the high, restful sanctuary
I go from the woods into the cleared field
Enclosing the field within bounds
Whatever is foreseen in joy
To long for what can be fulfilled in time
To long for what eternity fulfills
1980. What hard travail God does in death
The eager dog lies strange and still
Great deathly powers have passed
The frog with lichened back and golden thigh
Six days of work are spent
The intellect so ravenous to know
1981. Here where the world is being made
1982. Dream ended, I went out, awake
Here where the dark-sourced stream brims up
The pasture, bleached and cold two weeks ago
Thrush song, stream song, holy love
A child unborn, the coming year
We have walked so many times, my boy
The clearing rests in song and shade
Our household for the time made right
Hail to the forest born again
The dark around us, come
1983. In a crease of the hill
The year relents, and free
Now though the season warms
Who makes a clearing makes a work of art
1984. Over the river in loud flood
A tired man leaves his labor, felt
The crop must drink; we move the pipe
The summer ends, and it is time
Estranged by distance, he relearns


1985. Not again in this flesh will I see
A gracious Sabbath stood here while they stood
Awaked from the persistent dream
The fume and shock and uproar
How long does it take to make the woods
Life forgives its depredations
The winter wren is back, quick
1986. Slowly, slowly, they return
1987. Coming to the woods' edge
I climb up through the thicket
And now the lowland grove is down, the trees
May what I've written here
And now the remnant groves grow bright with praise
Remembering that it happened once
1988. Now I have reached the age
It is the destruction of the world
Another year has returned us
The world of machines is running
Always in the distance
1989. In early morning we awaken from
The old oak wears new leaves
Now Loyce Flood is dead
He thought to keep himself from Hell
One morning out of time
Here by the road where people are carried, with
The sky bright after summer-ending rain
One day I walked imagining
1990. The two, man and boy, wait
To give mind to machines, they are calling it
After the slavery of the body, dumbfoundment
I walk in openings
The body in the invisible
Cut off in front of the line
1991. The year begins with war
The ewes crowd to the mangers
Now with its thunder spring
The team rests in shade at the edge
The seed is in the ground
Seventeen more years, and they are here [The Locusts]
Where the great trees were felled
What do the tall trees say
Go by the narrow road [The Farm]
Loving you has taught me the infinite


1992. The winter world of loss
Lift up the dead leaves
Again we come
I went away only
I too am not at home
My sore ran in the night
Those who give their thought
I have again come home
We have kept to the way we chose [Thirty-five Years]
1993. No, no, there is no going back
When my father was an old man
Now, surely, I am getting old
Hate has no world
We went in darkness where [Remembering Evia]
1994. I leave the warmth of the stove
Finally will it not be enough
I think of Gloucester, blind, led through the world
They sit together on the porch, the dark
Raking hay on a rough slope
A man is lying on a bed
I would not have been a poet
And now this leaf lies brightly on the ground
1995. A man with some authentic worries
The best reward in going to the woods
Worn to brightness, this [A Brass Bowl]
We live by mercy if we live [Amish Economy]
Now you know the worst
He had a tall cedar he wanted to cut for posts [The Old Man Climbs a Tree]
1996. Now you have slipped away
On summer evenings we sat in the yard
It is almost spring again
A long time ago, returning
Some Sunday afternoon, it may be
A bird the size
In spring we planted seed
Our Christmas tree is
1997. Best of any song
Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling
I was wakened from my dream of the ruined world by the sound
"You see," my mother said, and laughed
The lovers know the loveliness
Now, as a man learning
There is a day.