Sabbaths by Wendell Berry. 

2/5 rating. 96 pages.

Book #30 of 2019. Read July 26, 2023.

This is a collection of poems mostly about nature.

Wendell is one of the preeminent nature-lovers and writers on agriculture of our time. He is one of those people that I hear about often in other books I read and so I wanted to start reading some of his work. I would say that this might not have been the one to start on. I’m hit or miss on poetry overall and I thought most of the poems in this book used overly flowery language while not saying almost anything of substance.

I am looking forward to reading more by Wendell soon, hoping that his non-poetry work is something I enjoy more.

I did like a few excerpts out of the book:

• “The woods is present as the world is, the presence/
• of all its past, and of all its time to come./
• It is always finished, it is always being made, the act/
• of its making forever greater than the act of its destruction.”
• “Slowly, slowly, they return
• To the small woodland let alone:
• Great trees, outspreading and upright,
• Apostles of the living light.
• Patient as stars, they build in air
• Tier after tier a timbered choir,
• Stout beams upholding weightless grace
• Of song, a blessing on this place.
• They stand in waiting all around,
• Uprisings of their native ground,
• Downcomings of the distant light;
• They are the advent they await.
• Receiving sun and giving shade,
• Their life’s a benefaction made,
• And is a benediction said
• Over the living and the dead.
• In fall they’re brightened leaves, released,
• Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
• To walk on radiance, amazed.
• O light come down to earth, be praised!”

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