A Hundred Shades Of Green

Excerpt from a Sabbath poem by Wendell Berry:

I leave work’s daily rule

And come here to this restful place

Where music stirs the pool

And from high stations of the air

Fall notes of wordless grace,

Strewn remnants of the primal Sabbath’s hymn.

And I remember here

A tale of evil twined

With good, serpent and vine

And innocence of evil’s stratagem.

I let that go a while,

For it is hopeless to correct

By generations’ toil,

And I let go my hopes and plans

That no toil can perfect.

There is no vision here but what is seen:

White bloom nothing explains.

But a mute blessedness

Exceeding all distress,

The fresh light stained a hundred shades of green.