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Sabbaths 1998, VI

 

By expenditure of hope,

Intelligence, and work,

You think you have it fixed.

It is unfixed by rule.

Within the darkness, all

Is being changed, and you

Also will be changed.

 

Now I recall to mind

A costly year: Jane Kenyon,

Bill Lippert, Philip Sherrard,

All in the same spring dead,

So much companionship

Gone as the river goes.

 

And my good workhorse Nick

Dead, who called out to me

In his conclusive pain

To ask my help. I had

No help to give. And flood

Covered the cropland twice.

By summer's end there are

No more perfect leaves.

 

But won't you be ashamed

To count the passing year

At its mere cost, your debt

Inevitably paid?

For every year is costly,

As you know well. Nothing

Is given that is not

Taken, and nothing taken

That was not first a gift.

 

The gift is balanced by

Its total loss, and yet,

And yet the light breaks in,

Heaven seizing its moments

That are at once its own

And yours. The day ends

And is unending where

The summer tanager,

Warbler, and vireo

Sing as they move among

Illuminated leaves.

 

~ Wendell Berry ~