This Day by Berry, Wendell -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

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Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Preface: A Timbered Choir: Sabbath Poems 1979–1997 This Day: An Introduction Preface: From Sabbaths 2013

I: This is a poet of the river lands II: Times will come as they must

1979

I: I go among trees and sit still II: Another Sunday morning comes III: To sit and look at light-filled leaves IV: The bell calls in the town V: How many have relinquished VI: What stood will stand, though all be fallen VII: What if, in the high, restful sanctuary VIII: I go from the woods into the cleared field IX: Enclosing the field within bounds X: Whatever is foreseen in joy XI: To long for what can be fulfilled in time XII: To long for what eternity fulfills

1980

I: What hard travail God does in death II: The eager dog lies strange and still III: Great deathly powers have passed IV: The frog with lichened back and golden thigh V: Six days of work are spent VI: The intellect so ravenous to know

1981

I: Here where the world is being made

1982

I: Dream ended, I went out, awake II: Here where the dark-sourced stream brims up III: The pasture, bleached and cold two weeks ago IV: Thrush song, stream song, holy love V: A child unborn, the coming year VI: We have walked so many times, my boy VII: The clearing rests in song and shade VIII: Our household for the time made right IX: Hail to the forest born again X: The dark around us, come

1983

I: In a crease of the hill II: The year relents, and free III: Now though the season warms IV: Who makes a clearing makes a work of art

1984

I: Over the river in loud flood II: A tired man leaves his labor, felt III: The crop must drink; we move the pipe IV: The summer ends, and it is time V: Estranged by distance, he relearns

1985

I: Not again in this flesh will I see II: A gracious Sabbath stood here while they stood III: Awaked from the persistent dream IV: The fume and shock and uproar V: How long does it take to make the woods VI: Life forgives its depredations VII: The winter wren is back, quick

1986

I: Slowly, slowly, they return

1987

I: Coming to the woods’ edge II: I climb up through the thicket III: And now the lowland grove is down, the trees IV: May what I’ve written here V: And now the remnant groves grow bright with praise VI: Remembering that it happened once

1988

I: Now I have reached the age II: It is the destruction of the world III: Another year has returned us IV: The world of machines is running V: Always in the distance

1989

I: In early morning we awaken from II: The old oak wears new leaves III: I walked the deserted prospect of the modern mind [Santa Clara Valley] IV: Now Loyce Flood is dead V: He thought to keep himself from Hell VI: One morning out of time VII: Here by the road where people are carried, with VIII: The sky bright after summer-ending rain IX: One day I walked imagining

1990

I: The two, man and boy, wait II: To give mind to machines, they are calling it III: After the slavery of the body, dumbfoundment IV: I walk in openings V: The body in the invisible VI: Cut off in front of the line

1991

I: The year begins with war II: The ewes crowd to the mangers III: Now with its thunder spring IV: The team rests in shade at the edge V: The seed is in the ground VI: Seventeen more years, and they are here [The Locusts] VII: Where the great trees were felled VIII: What do the tall trees say IX: Go by the narrow road [The Farm] X: Loving you has taught me the infinite

1992

I: The winter world of loss II: Lift up the dead leaves III: Again we come IV: I went away only V: I too am not at home VI: My sore ran in the night VII: Those who give their thought VIII: I have again come home IX: We have kept to the way we chose [Thirty-five Years]

1993

I: No, no, there is no going back II: When my father was an old man III: Now, surely, I am getting old IV: Hate has no world V: We went in darkness where [Remembering Evia]

1994

I: I leave the warmth of the stove II: Finally will it not be enough III: I think of Gloucester, blind, led through the world IV: They sit together on the porch, the dark V: Raking hay on a rough slope VI: A man is lying on a bed VII: I would not have been a poet VIII: And now this leaf lies brightly on the ground

1995

I: A man with some authentic worries II: The best reward in going to the woods III: Worn to brightness, this [A Brass Bowl] IV: We live by mercy if we live [Amish Economy] V: Now you know the worst VI: He had a tall cedar he wanted to cut for posts [The Old Man Climbs a Tree]

1996

I: Now you have slipped away II: On summer evenings we sat in the yard III: It is almost spring again IV: A long time ago, returning V: Some Sunday afternoon, it may be VI: A bird the size VII: In spring we planted seed VIII: Our Christmas tree is

1997

I: Best of any song II: Even while I dreamed I prayed that what I saw was only fear and no foretelling III: I was wakened from my dream of the ruined world by the sound IV: “You see,” my mother said, and laughed V: The lovers know the loveliness VI: Now, as a man learning VII: There is a day

1998

I: Whatever happens II: This is the time you’d like to stay III: Early in the morning, walking IV: The woods and pastures are joyous V: In a single motion the river comes and goes VI: By expenditure of hope VII: There is a place you can go VIII: Given the solemn river IX: What I fear most is despair X: Tanya. Now that I am getting old

1999

I: Can I see the buds that are swelling II: I dream of a quiet man III: The spring woods hastening now IV: What a consolation it is, after V: In Heaven the starry saints will wipe away VI: We travelers, walking to the sun, can’t see VII: Again I resume the long VIII: The difference is a polished IX: The incarnate Word is with us

2000

I: In the world forever one II: When we convene again III: As timely as a river IV: The house is cold at dawn V: I know for a while again VI: Alone, afoot, in moonless night VII: Some had derided him VIII: We hear way off approaching sounds IX: I’ve come down from the sky X: We follow the dead to their graves

2001

I: He wakes in darkness. All around II: Surely it will be for this: the redbud III: Ask the world to reveal its quietude IV: A mind that has confronted ruin for years V: The wind of the fall is here VI: The question before me, now that I

2002

I: Late winter cold II: After a mild winter III: We come at last to the dark IV: The Acadian flycatcher, not V: The cherries turn ripe, ripe VI: Is this the river of life VII: The flocking blackbirds fly across VIII: Every afternoon the old turtle IX: All yesterday afternoon I sat X: Teach me work that honors Thy work

2003

I: The woods is white with snow II: The kindly faithful light returns III: Come to the window, look out, and see [Look Out] IV: The little stream sings V: The politics of illusion, of death’s money VI: The yellow-throated warbler, the highest remotest voice VII: This, then, is to be the way? Freedom’s candle will be VIII: All that patriotism requires, and all that it can be IX: After the campaign of the killing machines X: But do the Lords of War in fact XI: It is late November, Thanksgiving

2004

I: A young man leaving home II: They come singly, the little streams III: They are fighting again the war to end war IV: To think of gathering all V: I built a timely room beside the river VI: Up in the blown-down woods VII: A gracious lady came to us VIII: It takes all time to show eternity IX: I mistook your white head for a flower X: An old man, who has been on many days

2005

I: I know that I have life II: They gather like an ancestry III: “Are you back to normal?” asks IV: We were standing by the road V: Nell’s small grave, opening VI: How simple to be dead!—the only VII: I know I am getting old and I say so VIII: I tremble with gratitude IX: Here in the woods near X: Mowing the hillside pasture—where XI: My young grandson rides with me XII: If we have become a people incapable XIII: Eternity is not infinity XIV: God, how I hate the names XV: The painter Harlan Hubbard said XVI: I am hardly an ornithologist XVII: Hardly escaping the limitless machines XVIII: A hawk in flight XIX: Born by our birth

2006

I: If there are a “chosen few” II: Many I loved as man and boy [Old Man Jayber Crow] III: Camp Branch, my native stream [The Book of Camp Branch] IV: The times are disgusting enough V: Little stream, Camp Branch, flowing VI: O saints, if I am even eligible for this prayer VII: Before we kill another child VIII: How can we be so superior IX: “That’s been an oak tree a long time”

2007

I: I dream by night the horror II: The nation is a boat III: Yes, though hope is our duty IV: In our consciousness of time V: Those who use the world assuming VI: It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old VII: In time a man disappears VIII: Poem, do not raise your voice IX: I go by a field where once X: I love the passing light XI: The sounds of engines leave the air XII: Learn by little the desire for all things XIII: “The past above, the future below

2008

I: After the bitter nights II: A man’s desire, overwhelming III: Inside its bends, the river IV: A man is walking in a field V: How many of your birthdays VI: For the third time since the first [The Locusts] VII: Having written some pages in favor of Jesus VIII: Hell is timely, for Hell is the thought IX: As if suddenly, little towns X: So many times I’ve gone away XI: Though he was ill and in pain XII: We forget the land we stand on XIII: By its own logic, greed

2009

I: Early in the year by my friend’s gift II: We’ve come again to a garden begun III: After windstorm and ice storm IV: How little I know in my widest V: Tiny elegant birds, a pair, have come VI: Our vow is the plumb line VII: For the apparent disorder VIII: As old men often have said IX: The old know well the world X: Our young Tanya, who bears XI: O Thou who by Thy touch give form XII: At the end of a long time

2010

I: When icy fangs hang from the eaves II: Many with whom I mourned the dead III: Where he sat in a room apart IV: Fifty-three years gone V: The red-eyed vireo VI: Let us not condemn the human beings VII: Blesséd be the vireo VIII: If you love it, do not photograph IX: By courtesy of the light X: Anger at humans, my own kind XI: The need comes on me now XII: To those who love one another XIII: O my own small country, battered

2011

I: Matisse’s Dominique of Vence II: Moonlight, daylight III: Quiet. The river flows soundlessly by IV: At the woods’ edge, suddenly V: For years around the spare house VI: The old shepherd comes to another VII: A man who loves the trees VIII: Off in the woods in the quiet IX: I have watched this place X: I saw a hummingbird stand XI: New come, we took fields XII: Do not live for death XIII: Will-lessly the leaves fall

2012

I: Now falls upon our hope and work II: Like light beyond “the visible spectrum” III: Though his tenure on the earth IV: It’s spring. The birds sing V: The grass doth wither, the flower VI: “Attend to the little ones” VII: Under the sign of the citizen’s pistol VIII: Since, despite the stern demands IX: I rest in the one life X: The creek flows full over the rocks XI: There are seasons enough for sorrow XII: Once there was nothing, XIII: The eastern sky at evening XIV: Praise “family values” XV: On a bright day, having slept XVI: There is no spring flower so XVII: After the long weeks XVIII: This is the flood road XIX: This is the age of our absence from the world, even XX: Sit and be quiet. In a while XXI: As a child, the Mad Farmer saw easily

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