2000
VII

Some had derided him
As unadventurous,
For he would not give up

What he had vowed to keep.
But what he vowed to keep
Even his keeping changed

And, changing, led him far
Beyond what they or he
Foresaw, and made him strange.

What he had vowed to keep
He lost, of course, and yet
Kept in his heart. The things

He vowed to keep, the things
He had in keeping changed,
The things lost in his keeping

That he kept in his heart,
These were his pilgrimage,
Were his adventure, near

And far, at home and in
The world beyond this world.

2003
IV

The little stream sings
in the crease of the hiII.
It is the water of life. It knows
nothing of death, nothing.
And this is the morning
of Christ's resurrection.
The tomb is empty. There is
no death. Death is our illusion,
our wish to belong only
to ourselves, which is our freedom
to kill one another.
From this sleep may we too
rise, as out of the dark grave.

from: "Sabbath Poems 1998-2004," in Wendell Berry, Given: new poems. (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2005).