the deepening ground

Savoring the pace of summer here at home with my family! Sure, there are projects that need to be addressed such as the “new” doors that need to be stained from the addition we put on back in 2020. I need to touch up the rust spots on the van and the garlic needs to be pulled to dry. But today, as we celebrate a day of rest, games and naps take precedence. It’s also nearing the end of cherry season here in Western Pennsylvania, so when I came across this Sabbath poem by Wendell Berry, that also references birds (we’re playing Wingspan in the photograph – you’ll WANT this game) and “my love” (personally, her name is Sarah), I knew I found the deepening ground for the day. Though the technical Sabbath has passed, this poem invites us into the Sabbath rest ripe for the picking in the business of every day!

Sabbath Poem V (2002) by Wendell Berry

The cherries turn ripe, ripe,
and the birds come: red-headed
and red-bellied woodpeckers,
blue jays, cedar waxwings,
robins -- beautiful, hungry, wild
in our domestic tree. I pick
with the birds, gathering the red
cherries alight among the dark
leaves, my hands so sticky
with juice the fruit will hardly
drop from them into the pail.
The birds pick as I pick, all
of us delighted in the weighty heights
-- the fruit red ripe, the green leaves,
the blue sky and white clouds,
all tending to flight -- making
the most of this sweetness against
the time when there will be none.
And you are to me, my love,
as a tree of ripe cherries,
and I am a wild bird high
in your branches, hungry, ready to fly!

“V” by Wendell Berry from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems. © Counterpoint, 2013: pg. 228.