This Day: Sabbath Poems, 1979 - 2012

The idea of “Sabbath” has always meant or implied rest. From its first recording in Genesis 1, through the conflicts described in the Gospels between Jesus and the Pharisees and teachers of law, right down to our more secular notions of “sabbatical,” rest has always been central in any discussion or understanding of “Sabbath.”And so it is in Wendell Berry’s “This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems,” published in 2013 (and often paired with his “New Collected Poems” published earlier last year). Of course, with Berry, everything is of a piece. As he notes in his introduction, he spends traditional Sabbaths in the old family church, unless the weather is good, or even tolerable. Then he heads for the woods and fields near his home in Kentucky, and discovering the reality of the Sabbath (and perhaps worship) just as much as he does sitting in a pew. Perhaps more.This is not the first time Berry has published a collection of Sabbath poetry. The heart of the new collection is poems from “A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997.”You read a collection like “This Day,” and you quickly learn how critically important the idea is in the poet’s understanding of nature, the land, God, aging, humanity, industrial civilization, and agriculture. To read Berry’s fiction and essays is to read and gain insights into his poetry, and vice versa. His writing is consistent and whole, reflecting a philosophy and a faith stretching over decades of work.Many of his Sabbath poems are mediations of what he understands as industrial civilization. As surprising as it might be, just below the surface of these poems lies anger directed at how much of community, nature, and relationships is sacrificed to greed. Sometimes the anger isn’t only below the surface, as in this untitled poem from 2008:We forget the land we stand onand live from. We set ourselvesfree in an economy foundedon nothing. On greed verifiedby fantasy, on which we entirelydepend. We depend on firethat consumes the world withoutlighting it. To this dark blazedriving the inert metalof our most high desirewe offer our land as fuel,thus offering ourselves at lastto be burned. This is our riddleto which the answer is a lifethat none of us has lived.What prevents poem like this from subsiding into political polemic is, I suspect, Berry’s faith, and his understanding of family and community (and it’s difficult if not impossible to separate any of these in his poetry and fiction). Another untitled poem, this one from 2005, shows how quickly a rainy Sunday afternoon can lead to a gentle mediation on aging, family, those who have come before, and how all of it is a kind of representation of heaven.Some Sunday afternoon, it may be,you are sitting under your porch roof,looking down through the treesto the river, watching the rain. The circlesmade by the raindrops’ strikingexpand, intersect, dissolve,and suddenly (for you are getting onnow, and much of your life is memory)the hands of the dead, who have been herewith you, rest upon you tenderlyas the rain rests shiningupon the leaves. And you think then(for thought will come) of the strangenessof the thought of heaven, for nowyou have imagined yourself there,remembering with longing thishappiness, this rain. Sometimes herewe are there, and there is no death.Don’t miss that parenthetical line in the second stanza, “…for you are getting on/ now, and much of your life is memory…” That line stopped me in the middle of the reading, speaking wisdom, understanding and acceptance of what cannot be changed. And I realized that more than half of my own life is now lived in memory.I’ve read “A Timbered Choir” twice straight through, and then gone back and reread marked favorites. So it is with “This Day.” Berry suggests finding a quiet place in the woods, or at least a quiet room, to read these poems. And he’s right. That’s how they should be read, a kind of Sabbath observance all their own.As for spending the occasional Sabbath in the woods rather than in a pew, he does provide a rationale that speaks to the hearts of poets: “To be quiet, even wordless, in a good place is a better gift than poetry.”Poets know what that means.

For 35 years Wendell Berry has been writing what he calls Sabbath Poems. They are crafted mostly outdoors; on-foot walking his beloved Kentucky hill farm on Sundays. He has published some of these in different poetry volumes, the first of which was A Timbered Choir (1979-97). Now, he has two new poetry collections. This one is dedicated solely to his Sabbath poems. The introduction is a beautiful essay on the importance of Sabbath.I deeply enjoyed reading it on my `sabbath,' which for me is Monday because of my pastoral duties on Sunday. Here is his description of practicing the sabbath principle, and what can happen there - though not automatically, and not without attention and intention."In such places, on the best of these sabbath days, I experience a lovely freedom from expectations - other people's and also my own. I go free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays, and so my mind becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts: to what I am very willing to call inspiration. The poems come incidentally or they do not come at all. If the Muse leaves me alone, I leave her alone. To be quiet, even wordless, in a good place is a better gift than poetry."When the first new collection came out without Sabbath Poems, I knew this would follow. It is a treasured companion!

Wendell Berry is a word artist extraordinaire. In This Day he captures the beauty and blessing of Sabbath rest in a culture that doesn't know how to rest.Just as Berry's Port William stories take you to a place where time moves slowly to capture what's missed in our fast frame lives, his Sabbath poems from many years of Sunday pilgrimages in the backwoods of Kentucky take you to a sanctuary to settle your heart before the Lord of the Sabbath.This book is a good companion for introducing the rhythm of Sabbath rest back into our busy lives."The mind that comes to rest is tended in ways it cannot intend:Is borne, preserved, and comprehendedBy what it cannot comprehend.Your Sabbath, Lord, thus keeps us byYour will, not ours. And it is fitOur only choice should be to die into that rest, or out if it." ~Excerpt from 1979 II

I begin every Sunday morning by opening this book at random and settling down with my coffee to read until the spirit moves me to get started with the day. It puts me in the right place every time. Some poems just say it all for me. I'm so glad that the Sabbath poems are together here, all in one place for me to savor. Though Sunday mornings (my only day off from teaching) this is my ritual, I find that I often pick up the book during the week, just to read a few perfect words from a wise and grounded soul. Though his poems are always tinged with sorrow at what we are losing day by day, still he gives me hope just because he exists and he writes. There must be others like him among us, and therefore some possibility of saving the places I love.

good condition, received quickly.

My book came lightning fast and was in excellent condition!

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a fan of Wendell Berry’s writing. I came to him first through his fiction and later through his essays. I know him least as a poet, though that’s the way many people know him best. Now I’m hooked on his poetry, too, after slowly reading through This Day as part of my morning ritual. The way Berry sees is inspiring, and the way he writes is breathtaking. Just today I read the phrase, “the mind incarnate,” and I understood myself and my life differently. I’m only about a third of the way through this book, but I wanted to recommend it because it would be a great book to incorporate into your life for the new year.

Superb book.

There are few books of poetry worth adding to the classics, but Berry is a must. He is warm, trenchant, insightful, rooted. This book is particularly welcome for those of us who take an alternative approach to our culture and our faith. There are so many gems in this short book its tough to know what to highlight. Here is a short clip -For we are fallen like the trees, our peaceBroken, and so we mustLove where we cannot trust,Trust where we cannot know,And must await the wayward-coming graceThat joins living and dead,Taking us where we would not go --Into the boundless dark.When was made has been unmadeThe Maker comes to his work.And one more --What hard travail God does in death!He strives in sleep, in our despair,And all flesh shudders underneathThe nightmare of His sepulchur.The earth shakes, grinding its deep stone;All night the cold wind heaves and pries;Creation strains sinew and boneAgainst the dark door where He lies.The stem bent, pent in seed, grows straightAnd stands. Pain breaks in song. SurprisingThe merely dead, graves fill with lightLike opened eyes. He rests in rising.

By and large simple thoughts on life lived. Nuanced. A good read that I am sure I will return to many times.

A little disappointing. The edges are pretty rough and the book slightly off colour