Wendell Berry, Sabbath Poems: 1979, II

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.

7.30.2010

Estranged by Distance

Estranged by distance, he relearns 
The way to quiet not his own, 
The light at rest on tree and stone,
The high leaves falling their turns,

Spiraling through the air made gold
By their slow fall. Bright on the ground, 
They wait their darkening, commend
To coming light the light they hold.

His own long comedown from the air
Complete, safe home again, absence
Withdrawing from him tense by tense
In presence of the resting year.

Blessing and blessed in this result
Of times not blessed, now he has risen.
He walks in quiet beyond division
In surcease of his own tumult. 

Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir
The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997: 1984, 5.

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