Travelling Light

We travelers, walking to the sun, can’t see
Ahead, but looking back the very light
That blinded us shows us the way we came,
Along which blessings now appear, risen
As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,
By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward
That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

(Wendell Berry, Sabbath Poems 1999 VI )

Love's Perpetual Fire (Rossetti)

Christina Rossetti - Double Sonnet of Sonnets, No.11

***

Lifelong our stumbles, lifelong our regret,

Lifelong our efforts failing and renewed,

While lifelong is our witness, "God is good:"

Who bore with us till now, bears with us yet,

Who still remembers and will not forget,

Who gives us light and warmth and daily food;

And gracious promises half understood,

And glories half unveiled, whereon to set

Our heart of hearts and eyes of our desire;

Uplifting us to longing and to love.

Luring us upward from this world of mire,

Urging us to press on and mount above

Ourselves and all we have had experience of,

Mounting to Him in love's perpetual fire.

***

(from Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, p.179)

The Summer Ends (Berry)

The nights are drawing in, schools are set to re-open; it must be time to reflect with Wendell Berry (as well as Jeremiah) that the summer is past:


The summer ends, and it is time
To face another way. Our theme
Reversed, we harvest the last row
To store against the cold, undo
The garden that will be undone.
We grieve under the weakened sun
To see all earth's green fountains dried,
And fallen all the works of light.
You do not speak, and I regret
This downfall of the good we sought
As though the fault were mine. I bring
The plow to turn the shattering
Leaves and bent stems into the dark,
From which they may return. At work,
I see you leaving our bright land,
The last cut flowers in your hand.


Wendel Berry, Sabbath Poems 1984 IV.